Operation: Red Flag
by De4thknight
Summary: Noble Team and Blue Team, teams up on a suicidal mission to end the Human-Covenant War for good. The plan is to end the war before Reach falls, that is why they are planning on stealing the Long Night of Solace and bring it to the High Charity where they can either blow it up or capture the prophets and end the war.
1. Cortana

(Now the same as usual, I do not own any of the Halo stories so all credits goes to the ones who created the story so hope you enjoy this story.)

Planet: Reach (Epsilon Eridani System)

Date: August 14th 2552

OPERATION: RED FLAG

The UNSC is pulling many resources in this fight for Reach when the Covenant discovered the planet and is now sending everything against them; the UNSC needs to do the same thing in order to stop the Covenant from destroying their fortress. If Reach falls then they will be closer from reaching Earth, it would be the end of humanity if these two planets fall to the Covenant.

It has been a day now since the UNSC discovered the Covenant's powerful superweapon against their fleet is now hanging in space, away from the danger right now but it will come back down when reinforcements arrive. The great Supercarrier has made its hold over the skies right now, causing the UNSC forces on the ground for a total retreat while they plan to find a way to take down that powerful ship, both ONI and any other higher ups plan for a strategy to take out that ship before the main fleet arrives. Due to the discovery of that ship, fifty percent of the fleet is making its way to Reach, they will have to deal with that monstrosity and surely deal with extra Covenant ships that will arrive soon.

ONI decides to initiate OPERATION: RED FLAG, a plan that might save Reach and end the war but might involve many phases in order to get this started, planning to do the impossible right here and that is to hijack the most powerful ship in Covenant fleet, The Long Night of Solace'. ONI believes that with a perfect strategy and the element of surprise, it is possible for them to steal the Supercarrier and use it against the Covenant and to use it to reach their home world, if succeeded on taking that ship, they can end the war if the mission to the home world completes.

The first phase in this task is to retrieve Cortana and take her to a Halcyon-class vessel where it will launch into space and attack against the Covenant, the ones who will help pull this off on hijacking the Long Night of Solace is Blue Team. Before they could leave, they need Cortana, this here is when another team travels to Sword Base and that is Noble Team. Noble Team are on board on two Falcons, flying over the battlefield and getting a look at the view, noticing that Sword Base is under attack yet again by Covenant ground forces. The Covenant have dealt heavy blows to the UNSC defences, destroying their defences outside the base and have already started to add their AA-guns, stationed near the edge of the cliff.

Inside one of the falcons is Noble Six who is Spartan Kane, a black Spartan who is famous at Lone Wolf, now is here with Noble Team to help fight the Covenant. He now sits with Carter and Kat on this falcon, looking out on the other falcons nearby and seeing the other half of Noble Team on the other one, also noticing some plasma fire from the ground trying to hit the falcons out of the sky but kept missing until finally one took a hit.

Carter looks out at the falcon that took a plasma shot underneath it, seeing it exploding and falling out of the sky, causing him to contact the other pilots on the falcons. "Pilot! Take us down now!"

"Yes sir."

Carter contacts the rest of Noble Team now. "Were going in."

The falcons begun to disembark onto the ground, once landed the Spartans will jump out, with them would be a handful of marines who came on another falcon that was behind them. Once they are off they quickly took flight into the sky, flying off elsewhere while firing off their machineguns on the ground and in the air as they fly off. Carter runs forward to take point, signalling everyone else to follow him towards an abandoned base that the Covenant ground forces destroyed, now guarded with heavy infantry, two ghosts and a wraith.

The Spartans move up towards the area in a line, once they spot the Covenant they open fire while the marines stay behind them for now, moving up and splitting in half, having half the team moving towards the destroyed buildings just to avoid plasma fire from that wraith. A ghost attacks Kat by using its boost engine, charging towards Kat but she activated an armour lock, blasting that ghost to bits on impact and sending that grunt flying past her.

Jorge would be standing near Kat once that ghost was destroyed, firing all out towards the other Covenant troops nearby, killing a couple of grunts while two elites jumped out of its fire. Kane and Emile would be running together on the right side to take out that wraith, Carter and the others would move off on the left side, through the destroyed buildings to cut the enemy's advance.

Carter was with the marines by his side, having Jorge take the middle with Kat while Jun was at the back, targeting the Covenant troops and firing two shots to blast the second ghost to bits. Jun notices the wraith was moving in position, getting him to move out of its sight and starts trying to target the gunner on the wraith.

Carter stayed with the marines while shooting down at the grunts that came out of the AA-Gun. He looks back to the marines "I got the gun. You guys cover me."

"Yes sir." The one behind him responds, taking his position to shoot at the Covenant while Carter runs towards the AA-Gun, taking some hits with needle fire but did not damage his shields well.

Kat moved into cover once she was taking too much plasma hits from that wraith, getting her to stay behind a large rock while she reloads while Jorge stands by her side, firing off rounds through the Covenant infantry near the marines. Very soon, that grunt that is mount on that plasma gun on the wraith took a hit in the head, killed by Jun when he had the opportunity, removing the problem and leaving the rest to Emile and Kane who were very close of attacking the wraith.

"Cover me." Emile said to Kane as he switches to the rocket launcher and moves in position, trying to get behind the wraith without it noticing him.

Kane moves forward and spots a handful of grunts approaching the site; he took aim and fired his assault rifle at them, removing them before they could do any trouble. The wraith would not target him after he revealed himself, instead it targets both Jorge and Kat and fired a plasma shell across the field, causing them both to shield block to block against the blast. Emile would make it behind the tank, crouching down and firing through the back core of the tank with one shot, triggering massive explosions from the back and soon the wraith went up in purple flames when it blew up.

"That takes care of that." Emile said when standing back up

Soon another explosion went off inside the AA-Gun, causing massive chains of explosions thanks to Carter when he threw a grenade inside the core, giving him a few seconds to escape before it explodes.

"All teams move up." Carter said

"We got more company." Jun said as he stays where he was, taking aim towards a handful of Covenant infantry and seeing a revenant coming through. "I don't think so." He said to himself before he fired. He shot the elite through the head, stopping the revenant from moving any further.

"There mine!" Emile turns towards the Covenant infantry, firing a rocket towards the revenant and blasting that to bits, killing two jackals in the process and causing the four grunts to run around while he reloads.

Both Carter and Kane fired a few rounds at the grunts as they were running around, Kane only killed one while Carter shot the other three with his DMR, killing them quickly with headshots. Once they are dead and clear, Carter signals everyone to move up, making their way towards the entrance into Sword Base.

Sword Base was becoming a serious wreck inside as Covenant began blasting through the windows and making holes through the walls to get inside quickly, causing the UNSC forces to be stretch too thin, seeing they cannot handle many places at once. Things got worse when they lose contact with some of their teams, seeing the Covenant are advancing and became more difficult because of the engineers floating around in the sky, making things harder. The marines would have to retreat further within, gather as many troops as they can and retreat and to destroy information like the computers and generators so that the Covenant do not get their hands on it.

Inside Sword Base was a Spartan-III who was busy helping the marines fight against the Covenant; her name is Rosenda, a member of Noble Team but put in the noble reserves for now. She wore a white armour and a CQC helmet, carrying a DMR while having a battle rifle on her back. She stood on the high ground in the middle of the base; she threw one elite off the balcony and sent him crashing on the bottom then threw two grenades down there once she stood at the edge of the balcony to take out the other infantry at the bottom.

Rosenda takes aim at the engineer and shoots it out of the sky, soon getting a transmission from Doctor Halsey. "Rosenda. Noble Team is inside the building, you need to return to me immediately."

Rosenda looks back when seeing three marines crouching down, having fear in their eyes as they try to reload their weapons and could not go back out there. Rosenda walks up to the marines while responding to Halsey "Negative, I still got a job to do here."

"Noble Team will take care of the mess, just get back to me. The Covenant can't get their hands on what I have and I need you here right now."

Rosenda came towards the marines and grabs one of them, lifting him up off the ground and getting him to stand before she lets go of him. "Follow my lead. Stay alive."

"U-Uh… R-Right… Sir."

Rosenda punches him slightly to the chest before turning towards the stairway. "Let's move." She aims her battle rifle forward, moving back downstairs, and responds to Halsey. "I'll be there in a minute."

Rosenda kept moving while firing her battle rifle at some of the grunts in the room, killing two of them while she keeps going and shot twice at a jackal before it died. The three marines would follow her as they watch her back, following her through the hallway and stops when she runs over the bridge, firing her battle rifle down at the Covenant infantry that starts shooting back at her. She was moving sideways along the bridge, taking some damage but she kept going and shooting down at them, she was trying to get the marines to follow but she notices their hesitation. Once she made it on the other side, one of the marine's runs along the bridge and did the same thing she just did, soon to see the others running across the bridge and only one fell at halfway. One elite took a lucky shot and hits him in the chest twice, getting the marine to stop when watching him taking those hits, watching him falling off the bridge and crashing hard onto the floor.

"Move it!" Rosenda shouts to the marines who watched that marine fell. She looks forward and spots some grunts coming around the corner, getting her to fire a few rounds through the heads, and continues moving with the marines behind her.

The Covenant infantry at the bottom was about to go chase after that Spartan, only to be stopped when the doorway opens up from behind them, seeing the six Spartans all together and began firing through, eliminating the infantry in seconds. The team rushes right in, seeing the whole place is worse than the last time they were here, seeing the Covenant has been busy while they were away.

"We left for one minute and this place goes straight to hell." Jun said

"The Covenant are getting desperate on taking this base." Kat said when moving in, reloading her assault rifle "Can't blame them."

Carter moves forward and looks up at the balconies above them; hearing gunfire going off and seeing the flashes of light from above, seeing there is people still fighting. "Let's move Noble."

Just as they were about to move, Carter stops and notices a phantom coming straight towards them, seeing it on fire and coming straight through the window to crash through, destroying the bridges that will lead them to the top. Noble Team ran for it to get into cover, seeing that phantom is not slowing down and will soon hit against the end of the wall, covering the doorway and causing more explosions from inside the phantom. Noble Team was lucky that they saw the phantom on time; all made it out of there by running out of the area and inside the room on the left.

"Guess we won't be going back now." Emile said when looking at the phantom then looks back to Carter

"Two and Six." Carter points forward while aiming his rifle "Move up."

"Yes sir." Kane moves forward with his assault rifle ready, having Kat following him to the side and tries to look forward while checking his indicator, seeing several yellow life signs on his indicator on the corner of his HUD.

The team continues moving without seeing any Covenant infantry around to stop them, seeing only dead grunts and jackals are laying on the ground and a couple of marines as well who are unfortunate. Once they are getting closer to the life signs, Carter would try to contact that unit, making sure that they do not deal with friendly fire when they come around that corner.

Six marines was standing in an empty curved corridor, having one of the marines controlling a mounted machinegun that was aiming out there. They soon got the word from Rosenda who was standing there looking at the wall, ordering the marines to hold fire when she too saw life signs coming towards them on his indicator. The marines would lower their guards, seeing both Kat and Kane appearing in their sights, getting Noble Team to lower their weapons as they move in.

"More Spartans." One of them said when approaching them

"Another Spartan?" Kat asks herself, walking around the corner and seeing Rosenda "Rosenda?"

She looks back at them "Well now… Good to see you guys again…" She looks over to Emile when he walks around the corner "Emile…"

"Oh it's you again." Emile said "What are you doing here?"

"You have to ask her."

"Her?" Carter asks

A sudden secret doorway would open up from around the corner that got everyone's attention, the same wall that Rosenda was looking at before Noble Team arrived. She would be the first to go through there while Noble Team hesitated, seeing her going through first and got them and the marines to follow.

"So who is she?" Kane asks Emile while walking in there

"She was meant to take my place in Noble Team, only if an Insurrection happened."

"Well you're lucky."

"So where are we going anyway?" Emile asks Rosenda

"You have to ask her." She stops and looks over towards the tram up ahead, seeing the lights lighting up the room to reveal the tram

The whole team made there step inside the tram and seeing it was capable to hold all of them, once inside, the tram activates and sends everyone further down. They all wait in silent as they wait for this to end, only to break the silence when Halsey appears on the screen, revealing herself to everyone.

"Doctor Halsey." Carter said

"Hello everyone, glad to see your faces a second time."

"What's going on here Halsey?" Carter asks "Why are we all here?"

"Commander Carter. Your orders have been to come here to initiate the highest-ranking mission that could change the fate of this war forever. You know what I am talking about."

"Red Flag."

"Operation: Red Flag is a high class operation that will involve a lot of steps in order to achieve this, if you play your roles correctly then you will surely win this war for us and save Reach."

"Win the war…." Jorge said "What are you talking about?"

"That large Supercarrier that is staying in space… Your job is to steal it."

"Steal?" Jun asks "The most fortified, longest, strongest and probably the most powerful ship the Covenant Empire has?"

"I thought we were meant to blow it out of the sky?" Emile looks to Carter

"Stealing this ship will give us the location on the Covenant home world, with it; we can end the war once and for all."

"I still think blowing it out of the sky would be a good idea." Kane said

"Won't make any difference though." Jorge said

"He's right." Halsey said "Destroying that ship won't make any damage to the Covenant fleet, destroying the Covenant Empire once and for all will bring the end to everything. You Spartans and of course you marines, if you survive this. There is an artefact that needs to be finished, once it is done, Phase One will begin in Red Flag and with it, you will deliver it to a Halcyon-class vessel that is preparing to depart from Reach and attack the Supercarrier."

"That's a crazy assignment." Jun said "No way a Halcyon-class ship could take on a Supercarrier."

"Let the crew of that ship handle it. I need some time though, the Covenant are already aware on my location and they will try to get in, you cannot allow them to get their hands on this."

"Don't worry…" Carter said "We won't let them get their hands on it."

"Let's hope not. Otherwise Reach will fall."

The tram continues moving down the rails where the people on board looks out and notices this huge structure in the distance, underneath the ice above them, seeing they are further away from the base. The team notice large chunks of ice falling from the surface, revealing the Covenant are aware of this place and started deploying phantoms through the gaps so they could enter within.

"They know were down here." Jorge said

"We need to set up a defensive perimeter around the entrance." Carter said "Give Halsey some time to complete her work."

"Spartans, there are four defensive turrets offline around the area, if you turn them on then you have more fire power against the Covenant." Halsey responds

"Copy that." Carter opens up the tram door and walks out of there first, moving forward with everyone behind him. "Kat, you and Kane will activate the turrets; we will prepare a defence at the entrance."

"Copy that commander." Kat looks to Kane for a second before looking forward "Try and catch up." She then started running off the platform.

"Alright the rest of you with me." Carter moves forward with his DMR at the ready

Both Kat and Kane did their job by getting towards the turrets, getting the two to split up before the Covenant arrive while Carter and everyone else makes their way to the entrance into the facility. They notice the area is pack with heavy weaponry, giving them time to last long down here in a firefight against the Covenant and not have to worry about running out of ammo. The team would have to defend that area, getting the Spartans guarding the gate while the marines would be moving to the left side to get some cover.

"Two defensive turrets are online." Kat said after she activated her first one while Kane activated the other one "I'm onto the next one."

Kane just arrived at the third one, pressing the console to turn the turret on and getting the gun to rise up out of the round storage where the gun was hiding. "Third weapon is online." Kane said then looks out, seeing a Covenant phantom landing closer to the ground.

"Get back here now." Carter contacts him

"Copy that." He turns back and starts running, running over the snow and goes to see how Kat is doing on the fourth turret

Kat was aiming at a phantom that was inbound to drop a wraith further ahead, quickly getting her to activate the console to get the turret out of the round storage. "The last one is online."

"Kat, get back here now. We got banshees incoming."

"Copy that commander." She turns back and starts running, looking over to Kane as he was nearby looking back at her "Come on Kane we don't want to keep the comma –"

A sudden shot fired from the phantom behind them; a zealot fired a needle rifle straight through the back of the head of Kat. Kane looks back at her when seeing her collapsing onto the ground, getting him to catch her and held her body in his arms while looking towards the sniper. He took out a magnum off Kat and shoots at the phantom, soon to have Carter to join, firing his assault rifle at the phantom when seeing Kat on the ground. Kane would soon stop and drops the magnum, picking Kat up off the ground and running back with her in his arms, back to everyone else while they cover them. Jun will be the one to take out that zealot when he took aim and fired, hitting that elite zealot through the head and sending him falling off the phantom before it took off.

Carter ran over to them once the sniper was dead "Kat!" He calls to her, noticing a hole through her visor.

"She's dead sir."

"We got company!" One of the marines calls to them "The turrets are firing."

"I got her." Carter takes Kat off his arms and holds her "Get in position." He turns back and walks with her in his arms back to the gate while Kane runs off to get a new weapon. Carter places her down, getting her to sit against the wall next to the entrance, looking at her for a while before he lowered his head. "I'm sorry Kat." He mumbled to himself. He looks back at her and moves his hands over her neck, pulling her dog tag off her neck and placing it through his armour.

Kane rushes back into the fight with Carter appearing next to him; both aim their rifles outwards at the enemy, killing the enemy before they could disable their turrets and giving them time. Everyone else joined in and open fire towards the Covenant, seeing banshees flying over to attack from the sky while also getting the wraith tanks to move as close as they can. They fire across the area and hitting only the walls and the ceiling, causing the team to move back while firing at the Covenant, back underneath the roof so they could hold out against their onslaught.

The marines who stood in the open continues firing on where they are, their fate would soon end when a Covenant elite was nearby, armed with a plasma launcher. He fired at one of the marines, hitting his chest and obliterating him, killing two more marines who was nearby while the other one collapse onto the ground.

Rosenda ran over to the marine to help, she grabs his assault rifle and helps him up off the ground before giving it back to him. "Take this and stay down." The moment she said that, she took a couple of hits from plasma fire from the enemy, getting her to look back and fire back at them.

The marine helps her by firing at the elite she is shooting, hitting the elite a few times before Rosenda killed it first, afterwards she will move out wards while reloading, noticing some grunts coming, shooting at the turret on the left. She gets helm from Jorge on moving towards the turret as it goes offline; they try to get that turret back online while they go eliminate the Covenant infantry before they call for reinforcements.

"I wish we can steal a banshee and bring the fight to them." Jun said while crouching down behind the sandbags. He aims out at a ghost that was slowly moving closer, getting him to fire twice before it explodes.

"We hold our position." Carter reloads his rifle

"You don't have to tell me that…" Emile said. He stood nearby then looks up when seeing a banshee coming towards them "Incoming!"

Half of the team fired at the banshee, damaging it while it shoots plasma rounds back at them. Emile takes over by taking out a grenade launcher, firing it in the air and held the trigger down, causing the grenade to explode and causes the banshee to lose power. The banshee flies over towards Emile, getting him to roll out of the way for it to crash into the side of the structure, destroying half of their supply of ammo.

"We lost our weapons…." Emile said when looking over to the burning armoury

"Good job Emile." Rosenda said

"We still got theirs." Kane spoke out when rushing towards a dead grunt, taking a fuel rod gun out of its hand and starts moving to the side while aiming at that wraith in front of him. He fired three times as it only had three shots left, seeing that only two of those hits the wraith but was still intact.

The wraith responded by firing at a lower range, firing it at Kane but he rolled out of the way on time, retreating back to the others and ditching the fuel rod gun. The wraith will fire again towards the others, getting them to move back to avoid the plasma explosion.

"How much longer!?" Carter contacts Halsey

"Just a little bit…"

Rosenda stays on the left side while firing at the wraith with her battle rifle, taking out that elite that is mounted the plasma turret, not knowing that a rare elite shows up on the left side, coming around the corner. A white elite field marshal came into the fray, armed with two dual plasma guns and gets closer to Rosenda but was halt when the marine saw it on time. He came rushing past Rosenda while she reloads, looking back and noticing him charging at the field marshal while that elite shoots back at him, hitting him in the chest a couple of times, seeing both of them are not going down until finally that field marshal killed him with a head shot. Rosenda drops her battle rifle and came charging towards that elite before that marine fell, she jumped up and punches it hard across the face then lays a kick to the chest to push it back. The elite would draw out an energy sword once losing its weapons, it tried to cut her but she rolled out the way on time, getting her to get behind the elite so she could finish this. She drew two combat knives and stabs her left hand knife through the back of the elite, she then wraps her right arm around the neck of the elite, pulling back then swings her right hand that was holding her other knife, slicing the neck of the elite and watching it fall.

"Spartans, get to the gate now. I have done it."

"Copy that Halsey." Carter looks out and sees the wraith tank blowing up, thanks to Kane and Emile. "Alright people, regroup on me, were done here."

Both Emile and Kane regroup after they took care of the wraith, they retreat and took some damage from a banshee nearby that was shooting at them. Once everyone was here, the doorway opens up and they all made their way inside except for Carter, he looks back at Kat for a while but he looks forward and moves on, force to leave her behind. He walks through and looks back, noticing surviving Covenant regrouping, seeing two more phantoms inbound but in front of him turns to dark when the door closes shut.

The Spartans venture down into the dark until they see bright lights coming from the place where Halsey lies, standing there and continue typing on her computer and looking back towards them, soon to turn back and looking towards the sphere on her left.

"What the hell is this?" Emile said

"Knowledge." She responds while moving away from her computer and looking back at them "A birthright from an ancient civilization. This AI is its custodian, and she has chosen you as her carriers."

Emile moves closer to Carter "Chosen? By an AI?

"By this AI, yes. Her measure of you carries as much weight as my own…. You are to take her to UNSC ship-breaking yards in Azod. There you will find a cruiser waiting to get her off the planet and start the next phase of the plan."

"I understand." Carter said "This here is for Reach right?"

"Of course…" She turns back to the AI one last time and shuts off her projection. Halsey pulls out the data storage unit, pulling out of the storage and held it with both hands. She took her walk towards the Spartans, thinking she will give it to Carter but she gave it to Kane instead, making him step back while she stops and stands in front of him.

"Take it." Halsey raises the storage unit higher to him "She has made her choice."

Kane looks to Carter as he nods to him then looks back to Halsey and grabs the package with both hands. "Do you have it?" Halsey asks him

"Yes."

"Say the words, please."

"I have it."


	2. Ardent Prayer

Location: Sabre Program Launch/Research Range, Farkas Lake, Eposz

Date: 14th August 2552

In a location far away from Sword Base lies a Sabre facility that is under attack by the Covenant, attacking the facility from the sky with their dropships and enemy fighters. This facility is hold to three Sabre fighters and will be launch very soon once they are ready, they are to help the second phase of Operation: Red Flag. They are to join the others in space on a space station to prepare the plan on attacking Covenant ships, taking them all out except for one so that they can use it to get closer to the Supercarrier called 'Long Night of Solace' and give the Pillar of Autumn the help it needs once it arrives.

The deployment of Spartans into space is a go when two Spartan-IIIs got the order to join the Sabre teams in space. The two Spartans will be on transport on a Falcon but after getting contact that there is many Covenant Seraphs in the sky, they are force to jump out and move along the beach to reach the facility.

One of the Spartans was a female who wore a black Mark-V armour with the helmet of a Gungnir; she was holding a battle rifle while her shotgun was on her back. The second Spartan was a male, wearing a dark green Mark-V armour with a JFO helmet; he was holding a grenade launcher and had an assault rifle on his back.

Both of these Spartans jumps out of the Falcon when it was close to the ground, the female Spartan moves up ahead while the other stayed behind her, keeping their aim up as they move along the beach. The female named Jessica contacts the Sabre facility, contacting with anyone inside to let them know they are here. Jessica continued contacting them but was no response from the base, soon to realise that when they move up the hill they will see just how bad it is. She got the look at the whole view and noticing the facility is already under heavy damage by the Covenant, their defensive weapons are no good but up in the sky there lies two frigates in the background, firing their railguns across the field to target the enemy fighters.

"Looks like the Covenant are putting up a fight." Jessica said "Unlike our side…"

"Then we got to get in there, we can't let the Covenant scramble the facility."

"You don't have to tell me that, James." She moves forward 'Let's go."

The two move on the beach to reach the facility on foot, ignoring the Covenant fighters and dropships that are flying above their heads, they seem to be ignoring them for the time being. There was a couple of Covenant infantry on the ground however, seeing a couple of grunts and two elites standing near a crashed Phantom nearby. Jessica fired first when seeing the grunts, taking them out quickly while James moves to the side of her, aiming his grenade launcher at one of the elites. He fired his grenade launcher, damaging the shield but that elite rolled out of the way, Jess will throw a grenade and took care of that elite then will turn towards the other one who was moving backwards while firing.

"We got incoming!" James said when switching to his assault rifle, seeing Covenant pods coming down from the sky, seeing a lot of them crashing inside the facility and a few on the beach in front of them.

"Damnit!" Jess keeps moving while reloading her battle rifle, aiming at one of the pods in front of them that just opened up.

One elite drew out two plasma guns and started shooting back at the two Spartans when they were shooting back at the elite, damaging the shields and started moving back but once the shields went down, Jess finished it with a head shot before reloading. The two continued moving and notices two more elites up ahead shooting down at them, getting James to switch to the grenade launcher then fires, killing one and damaging the other, allowing Jess to do another head shot at the second one. The other elite that they were shooting at the start was close to the entrance of the facility, standing with a handful of grunts and jackals as they start shooting at the marines.

Two marines was standing by the entrance and taking heavy fire from the Covenant. One of them took a hit and collapses while the other retreats inside the entrance, reloading his assault rifle before moving back out there. Three marines assist the lone marine out there, one was loading the rocket launcher and once outside he fired a single rocket towards them, blasting only two grunts and two jackals.

Both James and Jessica moves up the hill to join the fight, Jess was firing at the elite from behind while moving forward, soon getting close enough to throw a plasma grenade at it, hitting the chest and exploding the elite and killing a grunt in the process. James comes moving to the side of her and aims his grenade launcher, firing a shot and taking out two jackals while Jess finish killing the rest of them with her battle rifle.

"Spartans are coming in!" One of the marines calls out "Hold your fire!"

The marine's moves to the side to let the Spartans inside, allowing them inside while the marine's secure position outside the base. They move on through then go to the right, heading up the stairs then stops when seeing a marine flying across and hitting against the wall. One elite made his way through in this curve hallway, firing his plasma gun at the marines on the other side, having his back towards the Spartans.

The elite continued firing at the marines until it looks back and notice the Spartans, he started firing at them and took a hit to the chest with James grenade launcher, pushing it back. The elite roars after losing its shield but before charging at them, it took too much hits from Jess and the marines, killing it quickly. After it was down, they reload while running past it, moving past the marines and heading into the other room.

Another Spartan-III made his appearance in the control room that causes them to stop and see another face, a male Spartan with red Mark-IV armour with EVA helmet on. He was standing in front of the control console with his sniper rifle on it, looking at this holographic display of three Covenant vessels that are corvette class. This Spartan turns his attention towards the two Spartans entering the room; he moves off the table and grabs his rifle.

"You guys here for the mission?" The Spartan said when placing his sniper rifle on his back

"Yeah." Jessica said

"I see…." He looks to James then points to his left at a doorway "That doorway will lead you to a Sabre, you know what to do?"

"Yeah I know what to do."

"Wasn't there supposed to be another Spartan on this mission too?" Jess asks

"I came here alone, it's just us now."

"And is that mine?" Jess asks when looking back, seeing her Sabre craft behind him and getting a good look at it

"Yeah…" He looks back to the Sabre then to her "I will join you as co-pilot."

"Seriously?" James said

"I don't need a co-pilot."

"I know… Once we secure Anchor 9, I will be off on another Sabre."

"Fine then."

"Well I guess we depart ways then." James said when moving to the door but stops and looks back at the two "Good luck."

"You too James… You be careful out there."

"I know." He turns back and moves straight to the door

"We have to go." The Spartan said while turning back and moving straight to the Sabre

Jessica follows him to her Sabre, moving up these steps and seeing some dead marines and a few dead elites on the ground. One of the marines was checking dead golden elite while another one was standing near the bridge, saluting the two Spartans.

"Sabre is prep and ready to go."

"Good luck on the surface." Jess said while taping on his shoulder as she runs past him, looking back to the other Spartan as he stands there, waiting for her to get on board first. "Let me guess… Ladies first?"

"You know how to handle one of these?"

"Do you?" She moves past him and tries to get on board on the Sabre

"I only flew a Longsword, not a Sabre."

"Well I guess you got to get the hang of this then."

The other Spartan jumps on board once Jessica is ready to go, she begins activating the controls and prepares for a countdown to activate the engines. The marines in the room quickly make their way out of there, moving outside of the facility where they can evacuate the facility before the Covenant destroy the place, seeing that the facility has fulfil its purpose.

Three Sabre fighters prepare to let loose their engines, getting them out of the facility and go straight into the sky. Once they make their flight into the sky and through the clouds, the frigates got the call to take flight, seeing that the two frigates that was defending the facility will fly upwards to get their fronts sticking in the sky before firing their engines. Both ships are ready to leave but a sudden accident occurs on one of the ships, seeing that both these ships did take plasma damage from the fighters, one of them took too much damage and before they had a chance to make the flight, one of them lost two engines. The damaged ship was unable to make flight into space, instead of flying upwards, it was head straight down as they could no longer hold the ship in the sky. The ship was going down for a dive into the water while the other ship was force to depart, leaving it behind as that ship cannot deal with the enemy fighters alone so it was force to activate its engines and begins to take flight into space.

The Sabres made it straight into space without any problems from Covenant or their engines, once they are up there, they will break off the boost engines and let them drift through space, after that, the Sabres will boost their own engines and sends the three straight towards a space station called 'Anchor 9'. Anchor 9 is under the protection of a UNSC ship called 'Savannah' along with two Sabre crafts up here too. The station is working on turning their weapons online and leaving Savannah to dock and leave the Sabres to defend the area. The men inside the station will get contact of friendly ships heading towards them; the one in charge will contact the others, telling them that friendlies are coming in.

The three Sabres arrive in a diagonal formation with only one frigate appearing behind them, the other two Sabres that are here already starts flying towards them but they flew upwards, flying over their heads. The three Sabres moves towards the station and so do the other ship, flying over the pieces of a constructed cruiser.

"This is Spartan Jessica of the Sabre teams, you there Anchor 9?"

"Welcome to Anchor 9, Spartans. Make yourself at home."

"Copy that…"

"We seem to be missing a ship." James said when flying back and noticing one frigate "What happen to the other one?"

"We lost it." The captain of that ship responds "There was no way it could make it through orbit, I had no choice but to leave them behind."

"Are you serious?"

"There was nothing I could have done. The Covenant would have shot me down if I tried to send search and rescue teams, it's too late."

"Son of a bitch…."

"Anchor 9, I need some assistance on repairing my ship before heading out to battle, we took a few damage from the Covenant ships."

"Copy that. All UNSC ships, the mission is still a go so get ready for a firefight."

"Anchor 9, this is Spartan Philips." The co-pilot said "Permission to dock inside Anchor 9 with another Sabre, I am to trade places with any of the pilots."

"You have permission to dock inside, the other request…. You may need to ask one of them yourself."

"This is Lieutenant Dawson." One of the Sabres responds "I am happily to trade places."

"Copy that, both of you have permission to land inside Anchor 9."

"Thanks Anchor 9."

Both Sabres move towards both docking areas at Anchor 9 where they can stop for the time being while the others move around the place, seeing there is no Covenant activity right now and are probably all stationed near the Covenant fleet. The enemy fleet will surely make their way to Anchor 9 but will not happen anytime soon, allowing them time to prepare for battle before they bring the fight to them. After everyone was ready and got the hang of the Sabres, they begin to leave Anchor 9 and bring the fight to the Covenant.

While Philips flies through space to reach the other Sabre, all UNSC ships and Anchor 9 will get communications from Colonel Holland from the surface, contacting everyone up there. "All UNSC ships, this is Colonel Holland. I should inform you now that this here is not just any other mission, all of you have been chosen for a very serious task that might change the fate of the war, if this succeeds then Reach will not fall to the Covenant."

"All of you are part of an operation called 'Operation: Red Flag'. Phase one is already underway, which means that we need your help achieving phase two, I am relying a lot to all of you so don't let Reach fall to the Covenant. You are all we got right now so let's hope that you pull this off."

"You are to engage the Covenant fleet and wipe them out except for one, we need just one ship to begin phase two. Another ship from the surface will join you all up in orbit, they are to steal the enemy vessel and send it towards the supercarrier. They will upload an AI into the controls and take control of the supercarrier."

"Wait a minute…." Jess speaks up "We are going to steal… The deadliest ship the Covenant has ever made?"

"Yes."

"No way… There are tens of thousands of Covenant infantry on board."

"Not necessarily." James said while flying over Anchor 9 "They could have deployed nearly all of their troops on the surface, which means it is not fully armed to the teeth."

"Well I hope your right about that."

"I know this is a terrible mission but you Spartans are to join the others on the stolen Covenant vessel." Holland intervenes "Once the ship on the surface joins the fight up here, they will deploy all Spartans inside that ship and send it to the supercarrier. If the plan works then we got ourselves the most powerful ship ever."

"The Trojan horse…" Jess mumbled to herself

"You know we could use that ship against the Covenant fleet." James said

"Destroying a handful of Covenant ships won't make much of a difference." Philips said "True the supercarrier is a power house but they built the damn thing and probably knows how to get rid of it quickly."

'Plus there's still a thousand more Covenant ships out there." Jess said

"That ship is not for combat." Holland said "It is for learning the location of the Covenant home world, with it, we can send the ship towards that home world and plan an attack to capture the leaders of the Covenant. Once we got them, they will have to sign the truce and the war will be over."

"Do you honestly think the Covenant leaders would actually sign a treaty?" James asks

"It's possible." Philips said

"Well what's stopping them from breaking the treaty and return to the war?" Jess asks

"She does have a point, colonel." James said

"Then we will find another way, I leave this operation to Captain Keyes on the Pillar of Autumn. Good luck all of you, may god help us all."

"This is UNSC Savannah; I will take over the operation for now on. Sabre teams are to engage the enemy fighters and clip the enemy vessels engines and weapons, our ships will provide support on wiping out two of the enemy vessels. We need just one ship in order to pull this off, let's not lose all of them."

"All Sabre teams are to follow my commands." Jess speaks out "Does anyone have a problem with that?"

"I see no problem." James said

"Same here." So does Philips

"Alright Anchor 9, I'm breaking out." Savannah said

"Copy that Savannah, good luck out there."

The UNSC ship Savannah moves away from Anchor 9 after it detached itself off it, moving away then activates its engines to go flying off away from the station, the same goes to the other two frigates. Both Sabre ships and the frigates will fly over the station and heads out into space, heading straight towards the co-ordinance of where the enemy ships are located. All the ships formed a rectangular formation with the two frigates at the front while the Sabre teams will stay at the back, soon to activate their boost engines to go faster in order to reach their destination quickly.

Elsewhere, the Covenant corvettes fly over head of a satellite that has its camera fixed on them, watching these ships flying over the area and it does not look like they will be moving onto the planet anytime soon. The camera of the satellite turns its attention towards the location of the UNSC fleet, zooming in on the UNSC Savannah that was leading the charge.

The Covenant ships charge weapons and ordered all fighters to engage the enemy ships, soon deciding to contact other available ships nearby but something was jamming them on contacting anyone else. Savannah is using a jammer to stop the enemy ships from contacting any allies in the area, making sure that this is quiet but they will have to destroy them before any of them have a chance to escape.

"Alright teams we have jammed the enemies communications." Savannah contacts the fleet "All Sabre teams, remove the enemy fighters before they have a chance to escape, leave the enemy ships to us."

The Sabre teams flies past the two frigates and began splitting into two teams, one flies to the left side while the others on the right, firing at the enemy fighters while the two frigates moves forward to engage the Covenant ships with what they have. One of the UNSC ships targets one of the corvettes with a MAC round, hitting the enemy vessel. That single shot pierced through the ship and triggered major explosions, eventually causing the ship to split in half and a bigger explosion send the two pieces drifting away, one even destroyed two enemy fighters in the process.

"Hey we need to spare one by the way." Savannah contacts the other ship "We need one to at least move."

"May want to clip one of the enemy's engines." Jess said "Good way to get on board quickly."

"Good idea Sabre teams. Once you get a shot, take out their engines."

"Jessica." James contacts her while flying over the piece of a destroyed corvette "I'm going to target one of their engines, can you cover me?"

"I can see you." She turns her head to the side and looks out at the window, seeing his Sabre nearby "Alright I got your back."

"I'm going in."

James takes down a banshee before boosting the engines, flying straight towards one of the corvettes on the side, flying left to right to avoid plasma fire from its guns, causing him to fly upwards to fly over that corvette while Jess follows him further behind. He flies over the corvette then goes after the other one, coming at the corvette on the right corner side and aims directly at one of the engines with his targeting rockets. Four rockets made a direct hit on only one engine, exploding it and leaving only three left, giving the next target to Jess as she is next to engage the second engine. James flies upwards then turns around, flying straight at Jess but flies over her head and open fires at an enemy fighter nearby, giving Jess enough time to fire her rockets to destroy a second engine.

"You guys are doing well… Keep it up."

The battle continued going for twenty minutes now and the Covenant are losing fighters out here, even though that they have a lot more fighters than them, they Sabres manage to wipe out most of their fighters. The two corvettes continues on the support on targeting the Sabres, unable to damage the Sabres so they target the frigates instead. One of the corvettes that was damage by James and Jess started firing at Savannah when he comes to the left side of it; it fired four plasma shots at Savannah, damaging the sides of the hull. Savannah retaliated by firing four rockets from above its hull, sending these rockets towards the corvettes weapons, only three made direct hits to their cannons while the fourth one hits the top. Savannah breaks off after firing those rockets and moves away, knowing that they do not want to deal more heavy damage to the enemy ships, the problem now is that since that corvette lost its side weapons, it targets the other one.

The second frigate flew in between the two corvettes and on the right time, both ships open fire and delivered massive damage to the other frigate while it continues moving forward, firing its railguns at both ships and firing a few missiles but they only did little damage to them. That ship could not handle that much pressure from those two ships, Savannah ordered that it should break off now, seeing that ship moving into the kill zone. Savannah and the other ships watch as that frigate could not handle it anymore; the corvettes continued firing until eventually seeing it broke into four pieces.

"Son of a bitch!"

"We just one of our ships!"

"Savannah!" Philips contacts the captain "One of the ships is turning about… It's going after you."

"I'll handle that." Savannah responds "Continue attacking the enemy fighters and the ships engines."

"Roger that." Philips steers his Sabre towards the damaged corvette 'I'm targeting the other two engines, I need some cover."

The damaged corvette with the two lost engines stayed where it was while the other one was turning to the side, turning on its right to try to aim its cannons towards Savannah that was in front of them, having the side of its hull facing the front of the corvettes. Savannah engages the one that was turning to the side while the Sabre teams remove the last enemy fighters, giving the Spartans time to target both the ships engines.

Philips succeeds on taking out the two engines, after he took them out; he flew over the top of the ship and flies towards Savannah. "We got a ship dead in the water."

"I'm targeting their weapons." James said "Jess, go after the other ship."

"Roger that, give me a –"

"We have contact!"

Six banshees and four seraphs appeared out of nowhere right when Jess was about to target the second corvette, seeing them appearing all the sudden and causing them to scatter the moment they see that they are under attack. The Sabre teams quickly act now, flying towards them and engaging them in another fight, fighting over the top of the corvettes.

"Where the hell did they come from!?" One of the pilots said when shooting at a seraph

"I thought we jammed their communications?" James asks

"There probably scouts returning back to their ships." Savannah responds "Take them out now before they scramble out of here –"

Savannah took two hits from the corvette that cause the captain to stop talking and returns fire against the enemy ship, seeing the corvette is in position to fire plasma shells at Savannah, damaging it more. Savannah continues firing back at that corvette while James and Philips target the ships engines while Jess targets the enemy fighters, taking two out before flying down to target the corvettes weapons.

"This is not looking good!" One of the pilots said "I need some help over here, my shields are down."

"Don't worry I got your back." James said when flying away "Philips you take care of the enemy ship."

"James watch out!"

The corvette that was firing at Savannah used its other weapons on the other side towards James fighter, firing a few plasma shots through space and missing him, noticing it now when seeing two flew past him. He went for evasive action but one manage to get a good shot at one of his engines, breaking his shield and destroying two of his engines in the process, sending James in a spin as he goes drifting through space with smoke and fire on his left side.

"James!" Jess calls out when watching his fighter drifting through space

James tries to take control of his fighter, unable to get control on the steering and any of his systems. He stops what he is doing and lets a sighs, knowing that there is nothing for him to do. "I'm sorry Jess." James responds to her, making those words the last she hears from him as a few seconds later, his ship explodes.

"He's gone." Philips responds "Resume the fight, don't let any of them escape."

"Damnit I can't handle it for much longer!" Savannah said "I need to break off."

Jess lowers her head for the moment while just flying through space, soon to look up and resumes her duties. She sends her fighter straight down, targeting the corvette and its weapons by using her rockets to lock in on the plasma weapons that are still shooting at Savannah. She sends forth four rockets down at them from above, damaging only one cannon while the others continued firing at Savannah while it moves away to avoid more weapons fire but was too late.

Savannah moved forward to avoid any more weapons fire from that corvette, in the end, Savannah took too much hits and two more hits later, the shots hit the engines and sent Savannah dead in the water. The ship took too much damage and soon, everyone watches as the last ship went up in flames; it broke in pieces and sent drifting through space.

"No…."

"Savannah is down."

"We can see that…. What do we do now?"

"Continue the mission." Jess interrupts "Take out that corvette and keep the other one."

"You don't have to tell me that." Philips said "All teams, focus your rocket fire on the weapons and on the top hull."

"Sabre teams, pull out." An anomalous message suddenly appear on everyone's communications, it was unknown to them

"Who the hell is this?" One of the pilots asks

"This is Jacob Keyes, identification number: 01928-19912-JK."

"It's the Pillar of Autumn!" Philips responds "All teams, disengage the enemy ship, the Pillar of Autumn is coming in."

"Well it's about damn time." Jess said "What took you guys so long?"


	3. Pillar of Autumn

Location: Unknown location

Date: 14th August 2552

Noble Team moves out while midnight is still out, bringing Halsey with them towards an outside hanger with two pelicans unattended, giving the team time to move out of here before the bombs go off.

Carter turns back to Jun before the team gets on board on one of the pelicans. "Jun, you are to take Halsey to Castle Base."

"I do not need protection commander." Halsey intervenes

Carter looks to her for the moment then back to Jun "Get it done; make sure she doesn't fall to Covenant hand."

"Understood commander." Jun responds "Good luck sir."

"You too rifleman." He turns back and walks onto the pelican

Rosenda was on board first before Carter got on; she looks back to him and responds "I'm sorry about your friend."

"Welcome back to Noble Team." He said to her before walking past her, taking the pilots seat

Jorge moves on board and so did Kane while Emile stands out, watching Halsey and Jun going on board the other pelican while Carter contacts Dot "I need a heading, Dot."

"At three kilometres north, turn right. Heading zero-five-zero."

"Which leads to?"

"The ship-breaking yard in Azsod. The only intact ship left on this continent. Small-scale air attacks have decimated many ground teams on route to its position. An army of Covenant ground forces and aerial assaults have hastened to side as well. UNSC cruiser, Pillar of Autumn is waiting for your arrival."

"Wouldn't be a Noble mission if it were easy."

Emile gets on board right when the pelican was ready to embark, sitting on the edge and looking out at the view while Jorge stands next to Emile while Kane and Rosenda sits down. They watch the view as they fly further and further away from the hanger, getting the sight of the other pelican as it flies elsewhere, flying further away from one another. The other pelican flies over the large thick of ice that soon sinks to the bottom, seeing flashes of light happening underneath the ice as the explosions went off, sinking all the evidence and anything else that was hiding down there.

Location: Sinoviet ship breaking facility, Aszod

Date: 15th August 2552

Noble Team continues their trip over the valley for hours, not taken a break after they left Sword Base. Carter continued to stay as pilot but the more they get closer to the Pillar of Autumn, the more they have to deal with Covenant fighters.

Covenant scouting teams spots the pelican flying over the valley and began to engage the pelican, having one phantom and three banshees chasing after them. Jorge and Emile target the banshees to shoot them out of the sky while Rosenda and Kane stayed at the back, holding on as the Covenant continues firing back at them.

Kane walks closer to the pilot area to see Carter, soon to stop when feeling some turbulence and took three plasma hits in the back but his shield held strong. He looks back and notice Emile aiming his grenade launcher at them while Jorge continues firing his heavy weapon, destroying one banshee while Emile fires the grenade launcher, disabling the other banshee and sending it crashing into another.

"I don't know how much longer she can take." Carter said "The sky is too heavy for the package to be up here, you need to go on foot. I will draw the enemy's attention."

Rosenda steps in "Sir –"

"I don't want to hear it." Carter stops her "Get the package to safety."

"I got it." Kane responds

"Not just you though." He turns his head back towards the others "All of you get out of here; it's a ground game now."

Emile drops the grenade launcher and hits his chest twice with his arm while looking over at Carter "It's been an honour sir."

"Likewise." He looks forward "I will draw their attention." He soon turns back and looks at Kane when he calls his name "Kane! That AI chose you, she did the right choice."

"Let's get out of here big man." Emile said when looking towards him

"You guys are on your own down there." Jorge said "I got the commanders back."

"Jorge –"

"I don't want to hear it too sir." Jorge said when looking towards him "I got your back from up here."

"…. Fine."

Kane walks closer to the edge while carrying the package with both hands to it, standing next to Rosenda and standing in front of Emile. Both Rosenda and Kane crouches down and looks back towards Carter, seeing him raising his hand up, giving them the signal to jump the moment he lowers one finger at a time until he closed them all.

"Mark!"

The three jumps down off the pelican and hits hard onto the ground, damaging their shields when they made impact and on impact, they start to roll forward until they finally stopped. Kane looks over to Emile then looks at the package to see if it is intact, seeing it did not take any scratch from the fall. He looks out and notice the phantom flying past them, continues firing at the pelican as Carter continues flying the damaged pelican. Kane gets up and joins the others on running through a narrow passageway, reaching to the edge of the cliff and getting a look at the long and wide view.

"There it is." Emile said, looking straight towards the ship that lies in the far distance "The Pillar of Autumn."

"We got a long walk ahead." Rosenda stands next to Emile

"You still with us commander?" Kane contacts Carter while placing the package away

"Get to the area as quickly as you can." Carter responds

"Roger that." Kane drew an assault rifle then looks to the left towards a pathway that leads down

"I'll race you."

The three Spartans work their way down off the cliff and onto the road up ahead. In the distance was Covenant infantry with just one elite and a handful of grunts and jackals, walking over the road and up ahead on this destroyed building. Kane took aim and fired first, taking out some of the grunts before they fired back, getting into a firefight while the Spartans keep pushing forward while pushing the Covenant back.

After the Covenant are all dead, the Spartans reload while moving towards the destroyed building, seeing two destroyed mongooses and an upside down warthog that is still intact. Emile runs towards the warthog and flips it while Kane and Rosenda checks the area, seeing an ammo crate and got them to reload. Kane notice a few dead marines lying there on the floor, one was holding a rocket launcher that got his attention, taking that and placing it on his back while holding onto the assault rifle. Rosenda reloads her two weapons that are the DMR and an assault rifle on her back, she even grabs a magnum off a dead marine and two grenades to be prepare.

"We got a warthog here." Emile said "I got the gun."

"I'll drive." Kane said when coming back to the warthog

"Save a seat for me." Rosenda said

Kane turned on the warthog and started driving out of here, heading down this rough road with the dune buggy, driving past some of the destroyed rubble around here when going through the small narrow valley. After a while of driving through, things got difficult when a few drop pods lands on the valley up ahead, causing Emile and Rosenda to open fire at the grunts while Kane keeps driving. Things get difficult when two scarabs comes landing land onto the field, landing nearby but are not attacking.

"Two scarabs!"

"Don't engage the scarabs!" Carter contacts them while flying his pelican over the area, firing his main weapon at the scarabs while they start moving "Get the package out of there!"

Kane kept driving while going underneath the scarabs, seeing they are ignoring them as they go moving over the hill but the grunts on board and the ones on the ground continues shooting at the team while Emile and Rosenda takes them out. The pelican above them flew out of there once they are in the clear, having Kane driving out of the open valley and soon to lead into a tunnel, which leads them further into the canyon where Carter will not be able to get sights on them.

The team was soon to be force to come to a halt when they go driving over a destroyed bridge, still had the speed to reach the other side but a blockade was stopping them from going any further. Kane quickly stopped before crashing into the blocks, giving them time to dismount and move up ahead where they will have to deal with more Covenant when a phantom comes over and drops some extra troops and a wraith.

"We got a wraith." Emile said "You better take that out."

"I got it." Kane said when switching to the rocket launcher

'I got your back." Emile moves forward and takes point, moving over the blockade and firing two shells at some grunts when getting contact

Kane moves over to the right side while Emile and Rosenda teams up on attacking the Covenant infantry, seeing a few brutes. Kane moves around the firefight to target the wraith while it focuses on attacking Emile and Rosenda, firing a plasma round into the air and got them to scatter to avoid the explosion, continues shooting at the Covenant while trying to move up ahead. The wraith continued attacking but when seeing Kane getting closer to it, the wraith turns to him but was too late to fire. Kane fired two rockets at the wraith and took it out quickly, emptying his rocket launcher and force to ditch it and switch to the assault rifle and help flank the enemy's position.

"Nice job six." Emile said when backing away while reloading his shotgun

Rosenda and Kane finish off the last brute when moving closer while firing their assault rifles at it, seeing it moving backwards while taking all the hits but eventually collapses, ending the firefight here. The team forms up again and reloads their weapons before heading through this small narrow entrance, moving up ahead where they are force to stop when hearing that they got more company up ahead.

"Hold up." Rosenda said when switching to the DMR "Somethings coming."

A handful of grunts came storming out into the open while carrying two plasma grenades in the air, planning on going suicide on the Spartans, lucky for them they saw them on time and started shooting like crazy at them. The three backs away when taking out the grunts, waiting for the grenades to explode and wait for the area to be clear before proceeding through.

"I hate it when they do that." Rosenda said

"At least it's them and not the brutes." Emile said

"Now that there would be insane."

"Let's move in." Kane reloads his assault rifle and moves past them, heading into the entrance

Meanwhile, back on the pelican, Carter continued circling around the area while trying to find them, seeing that they went underground for the moment but will come out soon. Jorge came up to Carter from behind and got the look at something in the distance, getting Carter's attention when seeing a scarab walking over the cliffs, getting closer to the teams position.

"That's going to be a problem." Jorge said

"Damnit… Noble… You got a… Situation."

"There's no way we can take that thing down."

Carter remains silent while thinking for the moment until he looks at the scarab "Jorge, get out of here."

"What?"

"Join the others on the ground, I got this."

Jorge leans back and sighs "So it's come to this…." Jorge takes off his helmet and drops it onto the ground. "Sorry commander." He grabs Carter all the sudden and throws him off the pilot seat

"What are you doing?' Carter calls out when he collapses onto the floor

Jorge moves over and takes the controls of the pelican. "You're better on the ground than up here."

Carter gets up off the floor and walks back to Jorge, grabbing his shoulder "I am doing this, not you. Stand down."

"You got work to do commander." He said when looking back to him "Reach is my home, let me do this for her."

"Jorge..."

"Lead Noble Team, get off this planet while I stay where I am." Jorge said when placing his hand around his neck, taking his dog tags off his neck and lending it to Carter "Tell them to make this count."

"..." Carter hesitated at first but soon grabs his dog tags

"Good luck down there commander. Tell them to make it count."

Back on the ground, the three are close of reaching the other side of the caves but are force to stop when they spot the scarab up ahead, looking down at them and started charging its main weapon. There is not enough time to avoid this attack but the pelican flew over the scarab, firing its weapons down at it but only slowing it down and it was still charging to fire at the Spartans.

"Noble Team, I got your back." Jorge contacts the Spartans while trying to turn the pelican around to face the scarab

"Jorge?" Rosenda asks

"Where's Carter?" Kane asks

"I'm on the ground, Jorge has got this."

"I got your back." Jorge said

"Jorge... You don't have to -"

"It's fine... There is no other way." Jorge responds to Rosenda

"Solid copy… Hit it hard, big man." Emile said

"Good luck out there." Jorge responds when flying straight towards the scarab from the side "Over and out –"

The pelican crashed hard against the scarab on the side, creating a massive explosion on the side that got the scarab to lose its footing on the cliffs, falling to the side then goes falling off the cliff. The team watch as the scarab falls with Jorge being the next member of Noble Team to die in battle, with no sign of his body however; he will surely be marked as missing in action.

After the scarab was gone, the team quickly turn their weapons to the side when hearing someone coming towards them, seeing Carter coming out of the shadows, holding a DMR in one hand while the dog tags of Jorge on the other. The team lowered their weapons when they saw him, walking up to him while he stands there, placing the dog tags away and holding onto his weapon with two hands.

"Commander…"

"Let's move, Noble Team." He turns back and takes point, aiming his rifle forward and starts moving through this cave

Meanwhile, on the platform at the edge of the cliff, next to the Pillar of Autumn, a squad of ODST's and a Spartan named Linda was stationed to defend this position against the Covenant when they see a handful of them approaching the area. The team was getting ready on where they are, getting into positions and taking control of some mounted machineguns that are place around the area. Linda was standing on one of the helipad platforms and using her rifle to get a look through the distance, seeing a handful of banshees and some phantoms heading straight towards them.

"The enemy is coming." She said when lowering her rifle, turning back and walking to two ODST's standing nearby, seeing one lending a Spartan laser for her to use while the other one was carrying a rocket launcher. "Once you're in range you keep shooting until there all blown out of the sky." She places her sniper rifle on her back and takes the Spartan laser off the Spartan, getting them to move back while she looks over towards the Mass Driver in the corner "Mark, how you holding up there?"

Mark is Spartan-IIIs who is part of Blue Team and assists Linda on the ground, soon to take weapons platform of the Mass Driver, operating it and watching over the skies from where he is.

"I got your back Linda." He aims the Mass Driver straight towards the phantom "Taking the shot."

The Mass Driver fired a shot through the phantom, wiping it out with one shot, causing the banshees to go scattering while still flying straight towards the area. Linda crouches down and takes aim with the Spartan laser while the rest of the ODST's load up and open fire, shooting at the sky at the banshees as they come firing plasma shots down at them. The banshee's swarms around the place once they fly over their heads, coming around for another attack after they just killed two marines in the first attack.

"Kill those banshee's!" Linda calls to the marines, moving forward while aiming her Spartan laser towards a banshee, taking aim and firing through it.

More banshees eventually came over to the area to assist on attacking the defenders, two phantoms came up from below the cliffs, getting Mark to get in range to fire. He shot down one of them while the other has already deployed a handful of Covenant infantry, dropping in some brutes and grunts before Mark takes out the phantom.

"We got ground forces." Mark said

"Let me worry about them while you deal with the sky." Linda said when switching to her sniper rifle.

Linda joins a few ODST's on firing against the Covenant ground forces while the rest of them continues shooting upwards at the banshees. Linda takes care of the brutes with her rifle, seeing she is an expert at killing them at close range, the two ODST's stays by her side while they go shooting at the others, clearing the area without any casualties. That changes when a banshee came around and aims towards them, seeing it on time as it fires a fuel rod shot down at them. Linda rolled out of the way while the two ODST's collapse onto the ground, only one hurt badly while the other one sustain no damage from the attack.

Linda got up and sighs a bit, looking back out at the view and reloading her sniper rifle then switches to the Spartan laser "Wish we had more Spartans over here."

Elsewhere, outside of the area in the south lies Noble Team, making their way inside the buildings as they push through against the Covenant forces. Noble Team joins with a few marines outside, pushing their way inside the structure to reach the other side where the transports are waiting for them.

Carter gets into cover with Kane on the ground while Emile and Rosenda teams up on the high ground, above them. Carter was about to get out of cover and shoots at the grunts up ahead but was stopped when getting a message; it came from the Pillar of Autumn.

"This is Captain Keyes of the Pillar of Autumn. We are tracking you, Noble, and have begun our launch sequence. Proceed to dry-dock, platform D. I'll be on it myself to receive the package."

"We'll be there, sir." Carter responds

"You better be soldier, because my countdown has no abort."

"Understood." He looks to Kane "We have to get to the dry dock. Priority One." He then moves out of cover and started shooting his DMR at grunts in the far distance

"Give us a minute." Rosenda responds while standing on the edge of the building above them, firing her Spartan laser through the Covenant turrets, taking out the third and last one out "Turrets are neutralise."

Kane runs past Carter and threw a plasma grenade towards one of the ghosts, getting it close enough so it does not have time to avoid the explosion, destroying the side of it and killing the grunt. He and Carter moves up and moves up ahead, firing at the grunts and elites that are defending the area while both Emile and Rosenda comes down to join them on moving up ahead.

The team charge their way through the factory and started eliminating many resistance against them, sometimes delayed a few times but they cleared a path through, continues moving at nonstop until they are soon come to a halt when seeing an elite field marshal in the distance. The elite drew out dual plasma guns and started shooting at the team while retreating back, letting jackals handle them while it moves inside the building. The team chases after the elite once they eliminated the jackals thanks to Kane, killing them all quickly when he threw a grenade over and killed half a quarter of them and Rosenda killed the last one. Emile and Carter takes point while Rosenda stays at the back, behind Kane as they enter the factory, noticing dead bodies but there is no sign of that field marshal.

"Where the hell are you, you bastard?" Emile said when moving through the factory with his shotgun

"Up ahead!" Carter calls out when aiming his rifle towards a couple of jackals as snipers, standing on the higher level up ahead.

The team runs forward when Carter killed taking a few hits from the needle rifles from the jackals, only two when they run up ahead. Carter deals with the snipers while the three deals with the jackals up ahead, shooting towards them and noticing the field marshal in the distance against the wall, drawing out an energy sword.

"He's got a sword." Rosenda said while reloading, seeing the elite running towards them

"Focus your fire on him!" Carter said when aiming his rifle towards the elite

The team fired all out at that one elite before it got the chance to get closer, taking out the shields quickly then collapses onto the ground in front of Rosenda. Rosenda shot the elite a few times to make sure it was down, soon looking up and noticing the jackals are retreating back, giving them time for them to advance forward. The team pushes through the jackals then runs up the stairs, having Rosenda throwing a grenade at the snipers and killing the last of them, soon to deal with a few grunts and one elite that came through the door up ahead. That elite charge towards the Spartans with two dual plasma guns, quickly killed early then the grunts ran around like crazy before the Spartans killed them.

"Noble Team, what's taking you so long?" Captain Keyes contacts the team "We can't stop the countdown."

"Were almost there sir." Rosenda said when running through the corridors

The team runs in a line through the corridor, going left to right and eventually got them to stop when seeing four marines standing inside, seeing two of them standing by the doorway. The team stops for now as they take a break and reload their weapons before they go moving outside.

"What's the situation?" Carter asks one of the marines

"We got a Spartan on the platform holding off against the Covenant." The marine responds "We have a second Spartan operating the Mass Driver, we lose that then the Autumn won't make it into orbit."

"Noble Team to Keyes." Carter contacts him "Were outside the perimeter "We have the package."

"Affirmative Noble Team, I will be waiting for you outside once the area is clear."

"Copy that."

"This is it." Emile said "The Pillar of Autumn."

"Were not done yet." Rosenda said "The job is not done."

"That's right." Carter said then looks to Kane "You ready?"

"Yeah."

"Then let's go." He looks forward and takes aim when running outside

Noble Team make their move outside with the marines behind them, moving into the battle and assisting Linda who was standing on the platform, carrying a battle rifle after she ran out of ammo with the sniper rifle and the Spartan laser. She reloads her weapon and looks out at the view of the place, seeing a few banshees in the far away distance. One of the marines behind her taps on her shoulder, getting her to look back and notice four Spartans coming closer to her, getting her to turn towards them and walks over to Carter while the others secure the area.

"Spartans, glad you showed up." She lowers her weapon when approaching Carter "Spartan Linda of Blue Team."

"Commander Carter, Noble Team's leader."

"Glad you're here…" She looks at the other Spartans then back to him "This is all of you?"

"We lost three of them."

"Understood."

"Linda." Mark contacts her "We got more company coming."

Linda looks towards the Mass Driver then looks back, seeing another phantom coming over while Mark continues shooting only the banshees out of the sky. She looks back to Carter "Ready for a firefight?"

"Noble Team is ready, what about you and your team?"

"My team is on the ship." She looks out at the view and takes aim "Let's go."

"We got some brutes." Rosenda said while standing on the building, standing by the stairway and firing her assault rifle at the brutes while moving backwards

Carter and Linda stays together on the platform and firing at the brutes on the side while Rosenda attacks them at the front, both Emile and Kane was on the other side, dealing with another phantom, dropping more brutes. The two teams up on firing at the brutes, soon to move backwards when the brutes get closer however, Emile stayed where he was, killing two brutes with his shotgun before reloading while Kane stays behind him.

The firefight continued going for a few minutes but once all hostiles are dead, the team moves back together on the platform while Mark continues firing the Mass Driver out there, taking out some banshees and eliminating any phantoms nearby. The team move together and notices two pelicans flying out of the Pillar of Autumn, slowly approaching the Spartans.

Linda looks over to Mark "Mark… You got our backs right?"

"I got your back, just get the package on board and get the hell off this planet. I got your back, don't worry about me."

Kane stands in between the team and takes out the data storage off his back, holding it with two hands while waiting for the pelicans to arrive. Both the pelicans turn around to have their backs towards them, having one floating nearby while the one in front of them gets close enough to make a land on the platform. Captain Keyes makes his appearance when the back hatch opens up; showing him, two marines and two Spartan-IIs that are on board with him, seeing one is Kelly while the other is Frederic.

"Spartans, I'm glad all of you have made it." Keyes said when approaching Kane, taking the data storage when Kane lends it to him, making him hold it with two hands "Halsey said that we can count on you."

"Not just me sir."

"All of Noble Team will be remembered." He said when placing his hand over his arm for a second, letting go of him and turning to the side, looking at the package before he looks up at the sky, seeing a battlecruiser coming out of the clouds, heading straight towards them. He turns back and looks towards Mark on the Mass Driver, contacting him while everyone else gets a look at the battlecruiser.

"Cruiser, heading towards the Autumn, Spartan you need to take out that cruiser or else we are not getting out of here, do you copy?"

"I got your back sir." Mark said when moving the gun to the side

"Times up, we need to get on board." Fred said when turning back and going back inside the pelican

Captain Keyes turns back and contacts the Pillar of Autumn, holding onto the package while everyone else gets on board the pelican as well. Kane was to be the last one to get on board but he stops, drawing out his weapon and looking to the left side, seeing a phantom incoming. The phantom came over and fired its main weapons at the other pelican, hitting the back engine and causing the pelican to lose control and once it loses another engine, it flips upside down and crashes hard onto the ground. The other pelican move forward while Kane rolls back, avoiding the crash of the pelican while the phantom flies over his head, heading straight to the Mass Driver.

"Mark!" Linda calls to him "You got company."

The phantom flies over Mark and fires its plasma turret down at Kane as he crouches down, avoiding the hits. One elite zealot came down and lands on top of Mark, drawing an energy sword and hitting the top of the screen. Mark responds with firing his sniper rifle through the glass, hitting the zealot through the chest and sending it collapsing nearby, getting him to get up out of the seat and finishes it with another shot through the head.

"Who's next?" Mark said when looking out in the open, not knowing that there is another zealot coming from behind him. That zealot turned him around to face the zealot, taking the stab in the chest with the energy sword, lifting him up in the air then fell to the floor when the elite lowered its sword.

Kane stands back up and looks over to the Mass Driver, soon to look back when the pelican flies back down to pick him up. "Lieutenant." Carter calls out "Get on board, were getting out of here."

"Negative." Kane said "I have the gun." He turns back "Good luck sir."

"Lieutenant –"

"Let him go sir." Linda said to Carter "Somebody has to stay behind."

"Good luck to you Spartan." Keyes said when watching him turn his back towards him and moving away from the pelican

"Good luck Noble." Carter said

The pelican flies away from the platform while Kane moves away and starts to make his way to the Mass Driver, using an assault rifle, grenade launcher and a fuel rod gun. He moves off the platform and moves up ahead with the assault rifle, noticing a few grunts and a zealot coming out of the door.

Keyes contacts him when he gets closer to the enemy "Six, get on that Mass Driver and clear me a path from that cruiser."

"You think he will be alright down there?' Emile asks

"He's a strong Spartan." Carter said "He will be alright."

"He's going Lone Wolf; I know exactly what that is like."

"And he was actually chosen to carry the package…" Rosenda said

"He will be alright, don't worry." Carter said

Kane moves up the two stairway and makes his way inside the building after killing three grunts while the zealot retreats, making him to pursue that zealot but will soon notice that there is three more zealots inside the complex. Kane switches to the grenade launcher and when seeing that zealot again, running back and forth while shooting plasma rounds at him. Kane fired his grenade launcher, letting it bounce to the ground before exploding close but the shields on the zealot was still intact, making him fire a second grenade at the zealot then switch to the assault rifle and tries to shoot it dead.

"Better hurry up six." Carter contacts him "That cruiser is getting closer."

"I'm working on it." Kane said when reloading his assault rifle then switches to the fuel rod gun "I'm almost there."

Kane breathes in then exhales before running up there; once he is ready, he quickly makes his move on the three zealots. He runs up the stairs and throws a grenade at the zealots, getting them to open fire and evade the explosion, once the grenades explodes, it only did little damage to the zealots but Kane fires three last rounds from the fuel rod gun at one of them, killing one zealot quickly. The second zealot draws an energy sword and charges towards Kane, quickly switching to the grenade launcher and fires at the ground, bouncing up and hitting the zealot in the face then threw a plasma grenade at the chest, killing the second one. One more zealot stands between him and the Mass Driver, that last zealot moves back then draws out an energy sword while Kane stands there looking back at the zealot. Kane makes his move first by running at the zealot as he keeps shooting while the zealot takes the hits and runs towards him. Halfway, Kane grabs the energy sword off the ground and swings upwards to clash swords. He pushes the zealot back while both swords still held against each other, soon to draw out a plasma weapon he took from the first zealot and starts shooting to the chest until the shields break. He drops his weapon after it overloaded then punches the zealot across the face, pushing the zealot back and quickly stabbing the zealot through the face with the energy sword and leaves it in there when it collapses.

Outside the building, the cruiser is getting closer while the pelican makes it land inside the Pillar of Autumn, landing in the hanger bay, getting the team out of the pelican while Keyes looks out at the view, seeing the cruiser getting closer. Keyes contacts Kane as he just arrived on the Mass Driver, warning him that the enemy is getting closer.

"Cruiser moving into position, I need it dead."

Kane takes over the controls of the gun and takes aim at the enemy phantoms flying towards him, destroying them with a single MAC round from the Mass Driver. He continued shooting them down, one by one while the cruiser is slowly getting closer, waiting for it to lower its shields so it could charge its main plasma beam. After wiping out ten phantoms and a few banshees, he saw the right time to take the shot when the shields are down and the plasma beam is charging, he needs to do this now or there all dead. He took that one shot and that single shot pierced through the bottom hull of the ship when it was charging the beam, causing chains of explosions to happen inside the cruiser and causes it to cease-fire.

"Nice shooting Spartan. Bridge, this is the captain, the cruiser is down and we have the package."

The Pillar of Autumn ends the countdown and prepares to launch, having the main engines and the bottom engines to help push it off the ground. The Autumn takes flight and flies over the crashed battlecruiser, flying over the area and begins to increase their speed on taking their flight into space, dropping its boosters onto the ground once they are done.

Kane walks down from the Mass Driver and watches as the Autumn flies out of here, flying straight through the clouds and into space where it belongs. The ship is gone and Kane is alone, being the only man standing here on this place due to being the unfortunate one, he is now alone like he was long ago. He decides to get a move on from this place before the Covenant arrive, moving out of the area and taking his assault rifle and other weapons, knowing what is out there in the wilderness.


	4. Lone Wolf

Noble Six stands alone in this destroyed wasteland, walking through this dead valley, as there was dead marines, Spartans and Covenant around the area, some destroyed vehicles and still weapons fire happening in the far distance. After the Pillar of Autumn escaped, all Covenant ground forces began their march across the territory, targeting UNSC facilities and power plants in the region.

Kane continued his walk across the field, eventually picking up life signs in the distance, surprise to see human life signs here on the battlefield. The Covenant are on their way to that location to wipe them all out, not knowing that there is a handful of Spartans out there. These Spartans were defending the ground to stop any more Covenant troops from attacking the Pillar of Autumn, drawing their attention and are now stuck fighting for their lives as there is no way that they could escape.

The Spartans are held up in this small area for their stand against the Covenant, only five Spartan-IIIs are still alive while eight of them are lying there on the ground with some marines as well, all dead. Two Spartans was defending the right side while two was defending the left side and one more Spartan was defending the bottom side. All of them was putting up a big fight against the Covenant, making their stand as there is no way out, the only thing they can do is kill as many as they can before they fall.

On the right side, a red Spartan named Dylan was carrying a battle rifle, firing at these grunts and a jackal nearby. His partner named Tristan who was wearing a blue armour, standing near him with a Spartan laser, aiming straight into the distance towards this wraith that was getting closer to them. Tristan took care of that wraith with one shot while Dylan was reloading his battle rifle, staying where he was while Tristan turns back and takes aim with his Spartan laser towards the left side at this revenant.

A grey Spartan with an EVO helmet named Sam was crouching down next to the building, firing his DMR and notices this red beam blasted near him, blasting a revenant to bits. The other Spartan with yellow coloured armour named Miranda, standing on a platform near Sam, holding a sniper rifle and taking out elites before they get closer. She crouches down and reloads her rifle while Sam stayed where he was, continues firing his DMR at these grunts and an elite in the distance.

In the south side of the area was a blue Spartan named James was fighting alone against the Covenant on this side, armed with a dismounted machinegun he took off a turret and started spinning up, killing a handful of grunts and elites. He continued taking out a handful of Covenant infantry until eventually running out of ammo, soon to notice weapons fire from the distance, shooting at the grunts that James missed.

"We got a friendly." James contacts the other Spartans while dropping the dismounted machinegun and switches to the assault rifle.

"Another Spartan?" Miranda asks while looking towards the location on where James is located "Where the hell did he come from?"

"Who cares, we need some assistance over here." Sam said while still firing his DMR

Kane continues firing his assault rifle while running to the side, firing towards one elite nearby that was shooting back at him. He gets help from James when he also joins in on shooting the elite until it dies; both reload before they come together.

"Where the hell did you come from?" James said when looking towards Kane then looks out at the valley

"I was left behind." Kane said when looking towards the two Spartans in the distance then looks back to James

"I can't believe you got left behind."

Kane looks back out at the view "Somebody had to do it."

"Welcome to the foxhole."

"How many Spartans are here?" Kane asks

"There's six of us now." James responds while looking up at the sky, seeing two phantoms flying over their heads and close to land down nearby "There used to be a seventh one but she took a plasma hit to the chest."

"We got company on our ten!" Sam contacts the Spartans while using the scope of the DMR, seeing four spec ops of elites moving towards them

"Hey there's a golden spec on our side." Dylan said when taking aim towards the gold elite, firing his battle rifle towards it while it shoots back at him with a needle rifle

"I got him." Tristan said when charging the Spartan laser, following the elite, watching it move sideways while continue firing.

Dylan continues firing until he ran out of ammo with the battle rifle, lowering his weapon and noticing a golden general, armed with an energy sword and goes running straight towards them. Tristan saw the general on time and fired his Spartan laser at the general and not the other one, killing that general before it got too close. The golden spec ops moved away while it was still alive, retreating and letting two elites run past and started firing towards them. Tristan ditched the Spartan laser once it was out, switching to an LMG and started shooting at the elites while Dylan moves backwards, switching to two plasma weapons and shoots back at the elites.

"This is getting hard over here." Sam said when shooting down one elite spec ops

"Tell us something we don't know." Miranda said when shooting through the second elite spec ops, avoiding a few needle shots from their rifles as she continues shooting. She fired one more shot at another one but missed her target when it moved out of her sight, causing her to reload her sniper rifle "Reloading. Last mag."

Sam looks back to her and starts moving sideways while firing his rifle at the enemy, trying to draw their attention towards him. One of the elites shot Sam a few times with the needle rifle, soon to take aim towards Miranda while she was reloading. She took four shots with those hits and just when she takes aim, she took a hit straight through her visor, hitting through her helmet and reaches the other side, sending her collapsing onto the floor.

Sam looks back to Miranda, watching her fall to the ground. "Miranda is down!"

All Spartans turn their heads towards Sam and Miranda as Sam continues firing his DMR towards the elites, soon to switch to an SMG while moving to the left side, away from Miranda's body. Tristan stays where he is while Dylan moves towards Sam, supporting him as Tristan stays on the right side, continues firing at the Covenant elites that are charging towards him.

Dylan and Sam team up on eliminating the last spec ops and try to secure the left side of the area. James and Kane secure their area well but are force to move away from one another, seeing some grunts with fuel rod guns and they need to avoid them while shooting them dead. Kane stayed on the other side and continued firing with his assault rifle, reloading his weapon then looks back towards James, seeing James is all right but there would change. One zealot came around the side, getting behind James and drew out an energy sword, moving towards James to impale that sword through his back. Kane saw it and runs over while firing his assault rifle, firing only half a clip as he was out of ammo. James heard something from behind and looks back, seeing the zealot and was about to fire, only to fail as it was too late, taking an energy sword through his chest. Kane kept running towards James and the zealot, switching to a grenade launcher and fire with one hand to it, hitting the zealot in the chest and losing its shields. Kane got close enough to finish this off by tackling the zealot to the floor, stabbing the zealot in the neck with his combat knife to finish it off.

Back on the top left side, both Dylan and Sam continued to defend on their side, taking a few plasma damage from the enemy, getting Sam into cover when he lost his shields. Sam looks over and notice Kane getting off the zealot and notices James was lying there on the ground near him, killed with an energy sword. He looks back to Dylan and notice him still shooting against the elites, taking a few hits with heavy weapons from the elites, watching him still shooting while taking those hits, eventually collapsing onto the ground after he could not take it anymore.

"Dylan!" Sam got up and runs over to him while switching to the magnum and fires a few times at the elites, soon to throw a grenade out there and got them moving out of the way.

Tristan looks over and notices Dylan on the ground while Sam retreats while firing his magnum. Tristan runs towards Sam to help, force to leave the right side to the Covenant as they start to move closer towards them. Two elites came rushing through, shooting at Tristan in the back with plasma shots.

Meanwhile, Kane looks back at James as he lies there dead, quickly taking out the grenade launcher when seeing an elite running towards him, firing plasma rounds at him while he shoots back. He took a few hits to the head with those perfect shots from the elite, causing his visor to have a crack on it. He crouches down when he felt the visor cracked, quickly grabbing the SMG off the ground and shoots back at the elite, taking it down. He looks to the side and suddenly taking a few more hits, taking a few hits in the chest and falls to the ground, feeling the pressure kicking in as he cannot handle the fight for much longer. He looks up and notices Sam still holding, firing his magnum at this elite while it shoots back at him, taking double damage when another one appears behind him, shooting many times at him until he eventually collapses onto the floor. Kane looks to his right and notices Tristan taking down one elite before being overwhelm, taking many plasma hits to the chest and when he turns towards Kane, he took an energy sword through the back.

Kane looks down at the ground, remembering the fallen Spartans he saw on the battlefield, seeing so many fall in front of him and because of them all dying around him, he is now alone. He was not going to be the next one to die, instead he embrace as much as he can, survival is the only thing he can do now.

Kane makes his final stand against the Covenant, first thing he does is remove his helmet and let it fall to the ground, facing towards Kane as he gets back up and picks up James assault rifle off the ground and starts moving forward. He held onto the assault rifle and starts shooting at one elite that was coming at him, it was shooting back at him until eventually the elite collapses. A zealot came at him to the side with an energy sword, he saw it and so he hits the zealot across the face with the back end of his assault rifle, pushing it away. He reloads his assault rifle then draws out his SMG and starts shooting at the elites nearby, taking a few hits in the chest but he keeps shooting, taking two of them out and continues firing while moving backwards, shooting one more before running out of ammo. Another elite charge through in front of Kane just when he ran out of ammo, knocking him off his feet and onto the ground, trying to stab him but failed when he kicks the elite back, throwing a plasma grenade towards the elite, hitting its chest then blows up. The zealot returns to the side and lodges the energy sword down at him, seeing it on time; he rolled to the side to avoid it, drawing his knife then stabs the zealot through the neck. He grabs the energy sword, tries to get back up, quickly stabbing the sword through one more elite, stabbing it through the chest, and leaves the sword inside of the elite as it falls back on the floor.

Kane rises up off the ground while struggling to stand. He looks out at the view for a while until suddenly the helmet spins around, facing the other way and looking out towards the back view, seeing a phantom flying over the area and close of landing to drop more troops. With the helmet facing the other way, it is unknown if Kane survives or not, making this unknown for now.


	5. The Long Night of Solace Pt1

The Pillar of Autumn has made a perfect success on reaching into space in one piece, leaving one Spartan behind to fend off against the Covenant on Reach. The Autumn made its way straight towards the battle, heading towards the Sabre teams that are busy fighting the enemy corvettes. One of the enemy ships is already destroyed while the other one is disabled, making it the perfect ship to steal and lead it to the Supercarrier while the other one was still causing trouble against the Sabre's.

Captain Keyes contacts the Sabre teams once he is in range to make communications. "Sabre teams, pull out."

"Who the hell is this?" One of the pilots asks

"This is Jacob Keyes, identification number: 01928-19912-JK."

"It's the Pillar of Autumn!" Philips responds "All teams, disengage the enemy ship, the Pillar of Autumn is coming in."

"Well it's about damn time." Jess said "What took you guys so long?"

"Don't worry about that, move your fighters away from that cruiser."

"Sir!" Jess contacts Keyes "On your side, target the ship on the left."

"I am just about to do so. Cortana." Keyes turns his head towards Cortana, seeing her smaller appearance on the console near him, looking straight at him. "Cortana, you have the gun."

"Thank you sir." She turns back and looks out at the view "That ship is good as gone."

"Try and hit the right one correctly."

"Hit the right one?"

"I meant… Just target the left cruiser."

"Could have just said so…"

The Pillar of Autumn flies straight towards the corvette, the cruiser was on the right side facing towards the Autumn. The Autumn fired a MAC round straight through the ship before it had a chance to fire back, piercing through its weapons and heading straight through the other side. The corvette took a heavy blow from that shot, disabling the ship and disabling the power.

"That cruiser is dead in the water sir." Cortana said

"Understood, finish it off."

"At once sir."

"Sabre teams. Get on board the enemy vessel and open the hanger, my Spartans will be waiting for you."

"How many Spartans are on board?" Philips asks when flying over the top of the corvette

"There's eight of them. What about your side?"

"There's only two of us now." Philips said

"Alright, you guys get on board the enemy vessel; we will take care of that other corvette and that Supercarrier."

"Yes sir."

The Sabre's make their move towards the damaged corvette they took care of before, heading over the top to land on this platform that could fit all of their Sabres while the Pillar of Autumn takes care of the other corvette. The Autumn blasted the ship with a couple of perfect missile hits, causing the corvette to split in half when a massive explosion went off in the center. The Autumn flies off over the side of the last corvette left, moving towards the Supercarrier to watch it for the time being while a team infiltrates the corvette from above.

Spartan Philips and Jess make their walk out of their Sabre's and so do the other pilots, moving around this circle energy field in front of them. The team holds position when seeing two elites coming out of the energy field and landing in front of them. Philips kills his elite quickly when he fired his sniper rifle straight through the head while Jess was on the other side of Philips, firing her battle rifle a few times at the elite before giving it a melee bash to send it fall back through the energy field. Jess falls through the energy field and lands at the bottom, firing at the grunts and the elites to draw their attention while the rest comes down to join her on taking them out.

Meanwhile, back on board the Pillar of Autumn, Spartan Frederic and Carter moves up on the bridge to stand behind Keyes as he looks out the window, looking towards the Supercarrier. Both Spartans did notice another Spartan was already here, standing nearby, leaning against the wall. He is a Spartan-III, wearing black armour and an EOD helmet with a blue visor on it. He is arm with two magnums on both sides of his waist, having two weapons on his back, one happens to be the DMR while the other weapon appears to be a rifle but they have never seen that weapon before.

"Look at the size of that thing." Keyes said, getting the Spartans to turn their heads towards him "That is the most powerful ship the Covenant has ever produced and we are going to steal it."

"And it is going to be mine." Cortana said when also looking at the Supercarrier

"For a while at least."

"Can you control it?" Carter said to Cortana when taking a few steps forward

Cortana looks back to him "Of course I can, just plug me into that ships mainframe and I have full control over it. I can find the location of the Covenant home world; have some fun on going there."

"There are a few methods of this plan if that ship makes it to the Covenant home world." Keyes said when turning to face the two Spartans "Someone from ONI thought of using this ship on destroying the Covenant leaders from orbit, also wiping out any other high officials down there, if there is any."

"You honestly think they will try to accept a truce?" Fred asks

"I don't really know what is going to happen but I hope that whatever happens in this mission, I hope it is worth it."

"This mission might end up in a bust if we are not careful." Frederic said

"That's why I leave this mission to the last of Noble Team and Blue Team." Keyes said then looks towards the other Spartan "And those who are in reserve, wishes to participate in this mission."

"Sir, we should also consider some circumstances that the plan fails." Carter said

"That's why we are coming too." Keyes said "We will be your last chance of survival. After the plan fails or succeeds, you people need a lift out of there. Take a ship or a dropship, do whatever you can to escape and get on board, after that we can escape and return back to Reach and hope for the best that we could try to defend it."

"I don't suppose were going to take that ship for a spin with its weapons." Cortana intervenes

"We can't risk it." Keyes turns around and looks back out that window "I know we want them to taste their own medicine but it won't end the war or do any different, it just slows them down. No, we need this ship for your chance to get in and your chance of escaping with it."

"Well what could possibly go wrong?" Cortana said

"Please don't jinx it."

"So anyways…" Keyes looks to Cortana "Sorry about this Cortana, you're getting off my ship."

"Well that didn't last long." She said then looks to Carter and Frederic "So where is my chosen Spartan?"

Both Spartans remain silent and so did Keyes when she mentioned about Kane, since she did not know that he is not here with them. Cortana stands there waiting for a response from the three, waiting for someone to speak out until finally, Carter takes a step forward and speaks first.

"He got left behind."

"Oh…."

"Spartan-B312 wanted to stay behind to give us a chance to escape." Keyes said "He's now missing in action."

"Unless he's dead." Frederic mumbled to himself

"Spartans can't die." Carter turns to Fred "He can take care of himself down there."

"Let's hope he can."

"So… What about my other Spartan?" Cortana asks "Is he here?"

Spartan Kelly leaves the Spartans for now and went to one of the rooms where a fellow Spartan-II is located, sleeping in a cryogenic pod. She stands near two doctors who was watching him sleep, once they get the word from Captain Keyes; they get the orders to wake him up. They lower the temperature inside the pod so that they could awaken him, once it reaches a certain limit he finally awakens from his slumber.

Spartan-117 opens his eyes, seeing a blur for a while but continues blinking fast until his vision returns to him. He hears noises coming outside but could only hear people mumbling, seeing two figures walking towards his pod but the moment he gets good vision, one of them happens to be Kelly.

"Rise and shine John." Kelly said "Time to return to the fight." She looks to the doctor "Get him out of there."

The doctor walks up to the pod and activates its open from a pad he was holding, opening up the pod and getting Chief out of there. The doctor checks his vital signs while Chief stands there, making sure that everything is fine.

"Sorry for the quick thaw, Master Chief. Things are a little hectic right now. The disorientation should pass quickly."

The other person was standing on the other side of the glass screen, waving towards Chief "Welcome back, sir. We'll have you battle ready stat."

"Chief, please look around the room. I need to get a calibration reading for your battle suit's diagnostics."

The Chief looks around.

"Good. Thank you sir. I'm bringing your health monitors online, sir."

"You ready to get back to work?" Kelly said "Come on." She turns back "Let's go."

Meanwhile, back inside the corvette, the team made it to the hanger room, fighting against heavy resistance. The team stormed in and killed half the infantry inside, losing two marines in the process but are close of winning; all they have to do is eliminate he elites that are hiding. Philips takes the high ground with his rifle, trying to take them out with a headshot while Jessica takes the marines and splits them, surrounding the elites to draw them out of cover. Jess gets them out of cover when she threw a grenade over; only one of them came out of cover and fired at the marines, killing one marine before it took a hit through the head by Philips. Jess ran into the fight with a plasma weapon and fired at the second elite, both shooting at one another until only one fell and that would be the elite.

"All clear." Jess said while coming out into the open "Hold your fire."

Philips raise his rifle to make the front barrel facing the ceiling, he goes to place his hand over the side of his helmet to contact Captain Keyes. "Captain, this is Spartan Philips. We have secure the hanger bay."

"Copy that Spartan." Keyes responds "A pelican is on route to the hanger bay with a handful of Spartans on board."

"Roger that." Philips place his rifle on his back, jumps off the high point he was standing on, landing on the ground perfectly, and walks over to the marines.

Meanwhile, back on board the Pillar of Autumn, the Master Chief and Kelly walks to the bridge to see the captain, seeing both Carter and Frederic leaving the room and notices Chief as they cross paths between one another. Chief was looking at Carter for the moment but Carter never said anything, he just walks past him and heads straight to the hanger bay.

"It's about time that you're awake." Fred said

"I already told him on what was happening." Kelly said "No need to fill in the blanks."

"So how much do you know?" Fred looks to John

"Were going to the Covenant home world by stealing a Covenant Supercarrier."

"Well… That pretty much settles it."

John turns his head back "Was that…."

"A Spartan-III." Fred said, getting John to look back to him "It's only you, me, Kelly and Linda who are the only Spartan-IIs here. That man is leading the Spartan-IIIs."

"How many?" John asks

"From my count… There's him, two Spartans in the hanger bay, another Spartan on the bridge and two more Spartans outside, stealing the Covenant corvette."

"Plus us four makes ten Spartans." Kelly said

"Not just ten Spartans though." Fred said "Captain Keyes decided to organise a strong task force of marines to help us attack the Covenant Supercarrier."

"Well… Guess we could use all the help we could get." Kelly said

"Well you better head to the bridge." Fred said "I'm heading to the hanger, we'll be waiting for you." He taps on John's shoulder before walking past him, heading straight to the hanger bay

Both John and Kelly moves to the bridge where they see Captain Keyes looking at Cortana for the moment, soon to pull a chip out of the console, causing the appearance of Cortana to vanish as her data storage is sent to the chip the moment he pulled it out of the controls. Both John and Kelly stands together and notice the other Spartan standing there, walking up to the three and looking towards Keyes.

"Master Chief…" Keyes looks towards him "So good to have you back in the field. How are you feeling?"

"I'll be alright, just give me a weapon." John said

"Good." Keyes looks to the Spartan-III "This is Wade… Spartan-A020. He's another perfect candidate for this mission."

"I remember you." Kelly said when looking at Wade "You were with me on that pelican when flying towards the Autumn."

"I was there." Wade said "I got picked up when I was near one of the spires, I was sent here when the Supercarrier made its appearance."

"Well then… We should get underway then." Keyes said then lends the data chip to John "Cortana needs to get on board the corvette and learn information on where the Covenant home world is. Once you lot get on board the corvette that ship will head to the Supercarrier. She is the hope for Reach. Whatever happens up there, the Covenant can't get their hands on her."

"Understood sir."

"There was a Spartan who was supposed to take her to the Supercarrier but he is on the planet, which leaves only you who could do it."

John takes the chip of Cortana and places her at the back of his helmet. Captain Keyes wishes them well and hope that he sees them again when this is over, hoping that they all succeed on this mission. Spartan Wade and Kelly both walks out of the room while Chief be the last one, following the two from behind and making their way to the hanger bay while the captain turns back and looks out at the window.

The Spartans in the hanger are all prepared and ready to go, already have their weapons at the ready. Carter was by the table that was full of guns in a line, taking a battle rifle, assault rifle and an SMG. He looks up and notices Fred coming towards him, coming on the other side of the table to gear up with some weaponry.

Emile came over, stands next to Carter, and looks behind Fred, seeing the other Spartans coming. Both John and Kelly walks over to the table full of weapons while Wade walks past them, heading straight to the pelican, already has his weapons of choice.

Kelly stands next to Fred, taking two SMGs off the table, soon to look up, and looks at Emile in front of her, placing a grenade launcher and a rocket launcher on his back and holding onto the shotgun. Kelly smirks under her helmet when looking at Emile's helmet, causing him to stop and looks up at her.

"What?"

"Nice helmet. Can you see through that visor?"

"Of course I can." Emile said "My helmet is better than yours."

"Hey…"

"He's right you know." Fred said

"It's a good way to scare some grunts." Emile said

"Well it doesn't scare me." Kelly said

"If it did then you shouldn't be here."

"Hmn."

Emile looks back and notices Spartan Wade on the pelican, getting him to look back to Carter "Sir… That's Spartan Wade."

Carter turns his head towards Wade and he looks back at them "Yeah that's him alright."

"You tried to read his file."

"I couldn't read his file." Carter said when looking forward "Couldn't have him as Noble Six, it had to be Kane."

"You know him?" Fred asks Carter

Carter looks up to him "He was going to be candidate of Noble Six. I couldn't read his file; ONI didn't want to give me anything about him so I couldn't have him in Noble Team."

"Doesn't that make him a…."

"Doesn't matter." Carter said to Kelly

"So what's the plan for this task?" Fred asks Carter

"We split into two teams when reaching the Supercarrier, we fight our way through to reach the bridge."

"Just like that?" Kelly asks

"Just like that." Emile said

"Unless you want to ask the Covenant politely to stand down and let us walk to the bridge?" Carter asks

"It could work." Fred said

"We'll be alright." John said when placing his assault rifle on his back and holding onto a shotgun

"Let's hope we don't deal with any casualties inside the cruiser." Kelly said "We can't risk any Spartans on stealing a ship." She then takes her leave and goes straight to the pelican

"No way am I dying on that thing." Emile said and also turns back and follows Kelly on the pelican

"I take it this is your first time meeting with Spartan-IIs?" Fred asks Carter

"Not really… But this is the first time going on a mission with you guys."

"I heard what happen to half your team…"

"I know… You make sure your team makes it in the end." He turns back and walks to the pelican

"Let's hope we all make it in the end." Fred said when looking to John

"Were going to be alright." John said "Spartans can't die."

"Yeah…. There just missing in action." Fred grabs his battle rifle and walks towards the pelican

"I like your friends." Cortana intervenes, speaking to John while Fred walks to the pelican "They don't seem very confident though."

"Don't worry." John said while walking past the table and going straight to the pelican "They are ready for what is to come."

Inside the hanger, Sergeant Major Avery Johnson was organising a strong task force of ODSTs and strong marines who are qualified to undergo this mission. They got the authorisation from Captain Keyes about this mission, allowing Johnson to form his own unit to join the Spartans on the raid to the Supercarrier. He formed up a handful of soldiers in front of him, readying them for what is to come when they go fighting inside the Supercarrier.

Emile was standing at the back hatch of the pelican, watching Johnson preparing the marines. He looks back to Carter and asks "I thought this was a Spartan mission?"

Carter looks out at the squad of marines then back to Emile "Guess we could use them."

Johnson comes up to John before he gets to the pelican "Is there more seats for the rest of us?"

"I thought you guys are supposed to stay on the ship." Carter comes up to the two

"And leave all the killing of a thousand Covenant bastards and the fate of mankind to you Spartans?" He laughs a bit "Yeah right."

"There's enough room to go around." John said when looking at Carter

"Alright… Get a weapon and get on a pelican."

"I'm one step ahead of you Spartan." He draws out his assault rifle off his back

The Spartans are ready and they get the green light for a go from the captain, ordering the pelican to leave the Pillar of Autumn and go straight towards the corvette. Philips and Jessica was still waiting for the pelican to arrive, eventually Spartan Philips decides to take the squad of marines to head to the bridge while Jess stays behind. Captain Keyes allowed Spartan Philips to make his way to the bridge, taking the marines with him where he soon is in a firefight at halfway to the bridge. Spartan Jess stays where she is and activates the hanger door, turning off the shielding when she sees the pelican just outside. After it was down, they head straight inside and land, getting the Spartans to jump out and starts spreading out and secure the area while Jess stands nearby, seeing Carter walking towards her.

"Where's the other Spartan?" Carter asks her

"He went on ahead." Jess said "He took the marines and are stuck in a fight with the Covenant."

"Well let's get to work then." Carter looks back to the other Spartans "Emile, take a Spartan with you and see if you could clear any stragglers on board."

"Copy that boss…" Emile said and looks back at the Spartans, noticing Kelly was shaking her head to him

"I'll go with you." Wade steps in while holding onto the DMR

"Alright then."

Carter looks back to Jess "Hold this hanger, the rest of our marines are coming on board too. The rest of us are heading to the bridge." Carter draws out his assault rifle and looks over to the door "Let's move."

Emile and Wade moves out in another doorway to handle with any surviving Covenant infantry while the rest of them make their way to the bridge. Philips was still fighting against the Covenant though, not close of reaching to the bridge but once the others arrive, they all push through and made it to the bridge. The team storms right in and took out one elite and a few grunts the moment they came through, getting the rest to turn back and fired upon them as the Spartans go scattering around the area, caught in a firefight. This took a while but eventually the Spartans took care of the Covenant, killing the last one who happens to be the general in charge of the corvette.

"Bridge secure." Rosenda said

"Captain Keyes." Carter contacts him "Bridge is secure; we have the corvette under our control."

"Copy that Spartans." Keyes responds "The squad of marines are almost on board, once there on, get Cortana control of the ship and send it to the Supercarrier."

"Copy that."

"Get me in the system, now." Cortana asks John

John gets Cortana inside the systems of the corvette, getting her full control of the ship and checking through all the databanks of the Covenants data while the marines are inside the corvettes hanger. Once everyone is on board, she gets the call from Captain Keyes, ordering her to send the corvette to the Supercarrier.

"Alright teams, remember to find the bridge in the Supercarrier." Captain Keyes said to all the Spartans on board

"Feels like were about to go running through a maze." Jess said when walking towards the window of the bridge, looking at the Supercarrier

"Just keep running straight." Fred said "We'll find it eventually."

"And a lot of bad guys…" Kelly said

"We can handle it." Carter said "We all have been through a lot, this is just a walk in the park."

"Let's hope it is a walk in the park." Kelly said

"What could possibly go wrong?" Rosenda asks

"Guys…" Cortana intervenes "I may have found something that could change this mission completely."

"What is it?" John looks back to the controls

Cortana removes the hologram of Reach that was in the center of the bridge, replacing it with a new hologram that she found inside the storage of the corvette. She finds the Covenants battle station, the High Charity.

The Spartans on the bridge, along with Johnson and some of his marines and both Spartan Wade and Emile arrives and got a look at the High Charity. This here changes the plans completely, discovering that there is no main Covenant home world but their main capital is a battle station.

"It's a battle station…" Linda said

"No shit…" Emile said

"Why are we looking at this?" Carter asks

"Because this is where we have to go."

"Should have expected that…" Fred said

"Captain Keyes." Carter contacts him "You getting this?"

"Affirmative." He responds "I have never seen anything like this before."

"This changes everything."

"Does this mean we don't need to run all over a planet to kill the leaders?" Kelly asks Fred

"Yeah."

"Are you sure there is no Covenant home world?" John asks Cortana

"This is what I could find." Cortana asks "It's a massive battle station, protected by the largest fleet of Covenant ships. I have looked through the data logs of this thing, all mentioning about a great holy city. They talk about it a lot in the data banks of this ship but if I am correct then the Covenant leaders are on this battle station."

"So instead of going to our deaths on a planet…" Johnson said "We are going to a giant battle station full of millions of pissed off bad guys?"

"I guess we are." Emile said

"That means the mission has changed." Carter said

"That means we need to blow up the High Charity." John said when taking a few steps towards the High Charity

"I like that plan." Johnson said

"If that is the plan…" Carter said "Captain Keyes…"

"I know, I know…. This… This here has changed the mission completely."

"I seriously doubt the main mission was going to work anyway." Emile said "So let's blow up their holy city."

"And kill every last one of those sons of bitches!" Johnson said "Let's do this."

"Sounds like a lot of work." Linda said "I don't suppose you have a plan to take out this huge object?"

"And before you mention it." Cortana intervenes "We can't use the Supercarrier and its weapons. The High Charity is protected by a thousand Covenant ships and this thing could probably possess strong defences, there's no way we could deal damage to it."

"We get on board and destroy its fusion reactors." John said "We send half the team to destroy the High Charity while the rest handle the Covenant leaders."

"That does sound crazy…" Carter said "That could work."

"Lucky for you guys… I like crazy." Cortana said

"Why go after the Covenant leaders?" Philips said

"Stop the bastards from escaping." Johnson steps in "Can't afford to let any of the bastards escaping that city."

"But somebody is going to take command." Kelly said

"Well we need to figure this out soon…" Cortana said "Were getting closer to the Supercarrier."

"First things first." Carter said, just when the hologram of the High Charity vanishes "Let's go steal that ship."

"Alright."

"Let's get this over with."


	6. The Long Night of Solace Pt2

The mission is a go on the Covenant Supercarrier 'The Long Night of Solace' where the corvette is heading straight into, straight into a flying fortress. The big shock to the Covenant is the element of surprise, finding out that there is an army of soldiers on a corvette and is heading straight to the hanger bay of the Supercarrier. This is to become the Trojan horse; the corvette is heading straight into the hanger bay without any problem at all.

The hanger of the Supercarrier was huge, large enough to fit three corvettes inside along with all sorts of powerful weapons. Inside the hanger was full of Covenant troops, seeing them all wondering around the area and not knowing what is to come. That corvette manage to get right inside and be held onto the ceiling with a clamp, allowing the Covenant troops and engineers to check a look at the corvette, soon to get a big surprise of what is on board.

The corvette gives the Covenant a big shock when it suddenly fired upon them, firing an energy beam that was underneath the hull of the corvette, targeting a wraith with a beam, incinerating two wraith tanks in the process. Everyone was off guard when they saw that, soon to get worse when the corvette started firing some of the non-damaged plasma cannons over the area, firing random shots across the hanger, spreading a panic. The corvette continued firing until finally it lowered its shields inside its hanger, bringing the Spartans and marines to come jumping out of it and starts shooting like crazy at the rest of the Covenant infantry. Both sides of the corvette turned off the shielding of the hangers, splitting the teams in half as they try clearing the hanger bay while Chief stays on board, getting Cortana off the bridge and getting into the battle.

The Master Chief comes down off the corvette and lands into the fight, rushing into battle and firing his assault rifle at the Covenant, pushing them back while his forces continues charging. He continued shooting until he turns to his side and moves sideways, firing his assault rifle at the Covenant above him on the high point, shooting them down and killing only a few due to the jackals with their shields. Carter and Philips was near John and notices him doing it, getting them to shoot upwards to target the jackals and send them falling. Emile was seen at the top of the high point as he manage to jump up there, he was seen firing his shotgun while moving forward, killing a handful of jackals and grunts while kicking an elite off the edge. He switches to his grenade launcher and took care of the rest at the end, sending them off the edge.

Emile reloads his weapon and turns back towards the others on the other side, noticing two hunters coming out of one of the doors. "We got hunters!" He calls out to the team on the other side while switching to the rocket launcher

"I got it." Kelly responds while charging at two grunts who carries fuel rod guns, firing three shells through them and taking one of their guns, taking aim towards the hunters and fired many times towards them. She manage to kill one while the other one moves forward, firing its own shot towards her but she moved out of the way, blasting three marines from behind her.

"I got your back." Emile calls to her when jumping down, landing behind the hunter, he fired one rocket towards the back, killing the hunter with one rocket. He turns around to the doorway, taking a few plasma hits from Covenant from the doorway, making him retaliate by firing the second rocket, killing two elites and two jackals.

Everyone continued firing down at the Covenant while pushing the enemy against the wall, not realising that all the doors began to close. Carter was the only one who notices this, reloading his weapon and looks at one door then to another, seeing them closing and not allowing more troops to come through.

"There sealing the hanger bay." Carter said while everyone continues fighting

"Don't worry." Johnson responds to him while continues firing his assault rifle, soon to run out of ammo "Lucky for you… I brought a key." He then places his assault rifle on his back and takes out the Spartan laser.

Johnson took aim towards the door and fired his Spartan laser against it, blasting the door with one shot and killing two grunts who stood in front of it. There was one elite standing behind that door and was injured, turning back towards the door and does not see a Spartan rushing in there and stabbing it in the neck, which would be Spartan Wade. Wade charges through, killing the elite with his knife, quickly drawing out his two magnums and started shooting down at the grunts and jackals very quickly, killing a handful and clearing the corridor. He quickly reloads his guns and keeps watch of the door, waiting for the others to finish off clearing the hanger bay from Covenant infantry, noticing that the battle soon ends, leaving no dead Spartans but only dead marines who died here.

"Area secure." Philips said after he killed his last grunt, looking back to the others while reloading his weapon

"Now here comes the tricky part." Kelly said

"We can either split the team in half, start clearing corridors until eventually find the bridge, or we stay as one and charge right in." Frederic said

"Why don't we just run around and start clearing this whole ship." Johnson said when walking towards the Spartans, soon to look to his right and notice the others are coming towards them

"I know a lot of us are eager to take this Supercarrier and kill every single Covenant on board…." Carter said "But we should split our teams in half and try and race to the bridge."

"So what's the teams?" Philips asks

"I'll take Blue Team and another Spartan." John steps in "I'll take Johnson and a few marines with me."

"Alright." Carter turns towards the destroyed door that Johnson made, seeing Spartan Wade standing over there. "Take that Spartan with you, I'll take the rest of the team and go the other doorway.

"Understood."

"Remember, we need to take the bridge. After the bridge is secure, we use Cortana to take the ship and use a lockdown; we'll trap the rest of the Covenant infantry inside so we don't have to deal with unwelcome guests on the bridge."

"Well then… I guess good luck out there then." Jess steps in and looks at the Spartan-IIs

"We'll be alright; you can count on us to find the bridge first." Kelly said

"Unless we find it first." Emile said

"This isn't a contest you know." She looks back to him

"Hey you started it."

"Can we just get this over with?" Philips asks "Were wasting time."

"He's right." Linda said "The more we stay here, the more defences on Reach we lose."

"And won't be long before the fleet arrives." Kelly said

"Then let's go knock on all these doors then." Johnson said while aiming his Spartan laser forward

"Alright, Johnson you take point." John said and turns towards the door

"Gladly." Johnson aims towards the other door near the one he blew up, blasting through that door for the other team to go through.

The team splits in half and heads on through both the broken doors, proceeding through at the ready and clearing a path to the bridge. The Shipmaster who was getting word about this, he sent forth his warriors into certain areas, trying to stall them, slow them down and stop them from reaching the bridge. He sent a lot of Covenant to wide areas, leaving doors unlocked for the two teams, pulled into a firefight, fighting against many waves of Covenant but they are well aware of what they have to deal with.

Both teams held well against waves of Covenant but the more they press forward, the more they advance, the more loss they take like the ODSTs but the Spartans on the other hand, not a single casualty. The team that is with the Master Chief, they are holding out well as all the Spartans on his command are doing great against the Covenant, especially with Wade who can handle against them all with his magnums. Johnson was giving them many help when blasting through one door after another with the Spartan laser, making a path to go through but it will not be long before he runs out of ammo with that gun.

The second team commanded by Carter, they are holding off well against the Covenant but they are the ones dealing with more heavy resistance than the other team. They are busy fighting off a handful of brutes, wiping out a handful of marines when they try to push forward, getting themselves killed. Spartan Philips and Emile took point to eliminate the brutes, he and his sniper rifle while Emile with the rocket launcher, removing the last remnants and blasting a hole through a door behind the brutes. Things become difficult when two hunters came through the broken door, moving right into this wide room with the Spartans and marines moving forward. The moment they saw the hunters, everyone fired everything they got on them, knowing just how hard it is to kill them. The hunters held well against their bullets and retaliated with fuel rod shots, blasting a handful of marines and causing the Spartans to either evade their shots or use armour lock to survive such attack. Spartan Jess and Philips teams up on taking out the hunters together, having Philips to get them to focus on him while Jess gets around them. On the side on one of the hunters, she threw two plasma grenades at the hunter, blasting it to bits while running behind the second one, carrying a plasma weapon and open fire, firing off barrage of plasma fire at the back, eventually killing the hunter before her weapon is force to recharge.

"Area secure." Philips said

"Move up everyone." Carter said while placing his hand to the side of his helmet, contacting John and his team "What's your situation on your end?"

"Were getting closer to the bridge but will take some time to reach it." John responds "There locking down the doors."

"Then we just blow them open." Kelly said

"There's a gravity lift up ahead." Linda said "Could take upstairs and closer to the bridge."

"Are we even getting closer to the bridge?" Fred asks

"Just keep moving." John said "We'll make it there."

"If you say so boss."

Elsewhere, back on the Pillar of Autumn, around half an hour, Captain Keyes just got word from one of his men that was operating a computer. Keyes walks over to get a look at the computer and discovers that there is Slip space ruptures detected in the far distance, near the Supercarrier. They discover a handful of Covenant ships, arriving to Reach.

"There's a handful of Covenant ships, sir."

"I can see that." Captain Keyes said when looking at the screen, looking straight at the Covenant ships as they are using a satellite as their camera. "How many are there?"

"We got ten Covenant battlecruisers and three capital ships."

"I'm guessing the rest of them are on their way here right now." Keyes backs away and contacts the Spartans "Spartans, did you get that? We got a Covenant fleet out there and are heading straight towards the Supercarrier."

Inside the bridge of the Supercarrier, the Shipmaster of the Long Night of Solace named Rho 'Barutamee was walking up to the window screen, looking out and seeing the Covenant fleet heading straight towards them.

"Late as usual." Rho 'Barutamee said "Now we can finally get this over with and begin the cleansing."

The door to the bridge opened up and the Spartans came rushing right inside the bridge, the ones who made is Blue Team. They charge right into the room and open fire at the grunts and the elites inside the bridge, getting them all to turn back, two plasma guns drawn and fired back at them. They charge right in with the marines, spreading out and fired all out at the elites and grunts, and taking out a handful of them. Wade was seen shooting down a few grunts quickly with his two magnums, shooting at one elite a few times and injuring it before he ran out of ammo, quickly kicking the elite back while drawing a DMR and shot it through the head. The Master Chief was with Johnson on trying to shoot at the Shipmaster as it was running sideways while firing rapidly at the others, trying to make him slow down so Linda can take the shot. Wade joins in the attack by shooting at the Shipmaster, throwing a grenade and breaking the shields, giving Linda the time to fire but failed to take the shot. The Shipmaster created a bubble shield around him, making sure that Linda misses her shot, giving the Shipmaster enough time to try to regenerate his shield while switching to the fuel rod cannon.

"The moment he gets out of that shield…. Drop him." Johnson said when reloading his assault rifle and taking aim at the Shipmaster in the bubble shield

"You don't have to tell me that." Linda said while getting ready with her sniper rifle

The Shipmaster Rho 'Barutamee hesitated for the moment, having its shields restored and quickly comes out of cover, giving Linda to fire while the Shipmaster fires also. He fires three shots through the room while taking a hit from Linda, losing his shields and taken heavy fire from the others until he falls back. The three shots did not hit anyone but Linda and Wade did roll out of the way, avoiding the blasts, as they were closer to the impacts.

Linda get back up and reloads her rifle, looking around at the bridge, seeing dead Covenant all over the place. "So who is going to clean this up?"

"Not me." Kelly said while reloading her shotgun

Spartan Fred looks down at one of the dead elites, shot it a few times with the DMR before looking back at the others, seeing the area is clear, and looks back to Kelly "Kelly, secure the entrance."

"Yes sir." She turns back and moves back to the door

"Bloody hell…" Johnson leans his assault rifle on his shoulder "That took a sweet ass time to reach here."

"Yeah I knew back there we went the wrong way." Linda said and looks to John, getting him to look back at her "I told you to go left but you went right."

Fred comes up to Wade while he ditches his two magnums after running out of ammo with those guns, taking two plasma guns off the ground. "Nice job Spartan." Fred said to him, getting his attention "You did well."

Wade looks back to him while placing his two plasma guns on his back "Thank you."

Fred looks back and contacts the Pillar of Autumn "Spartan Fred to Keyes, we have finally secure the bridge."

"Spartans coming in!" One of the marines calls out, seeing Carter and the others finally arriving to the bridge

"About time you guys showed up." Kelly said as they go past her, soon to look at Emile "Did you guys take the wrong way?"

"We got caught by another hunter." Emile said to her when walking past her

"Well that sucks." Kelly said "Everything was alright on our side."

"Good for you."

Fred walks over to John as he goes to the controls of the bridge, placing Cortana inside the controls and getting her full control of the ship. She shut down the lockdown, opening up the doors but for the time being, contacting the other team and helping them out on reaching the bridge, once they get here, Cortana will activate the lockdown again, sealing all the doors to stop any more resistance.

"So is our co-ordinance good?' Fred said to John "Are we going to the right location?"

"I am checking through the databanks of this ship, and it is the same as I was in that corvette." Cortana responds to the two "I am positive, the High Charity is real and the hierarchs are on board of that station."

"So are we ready to make the jump?" Carter asks when walking towards Fred and John

"But what about the fleet?" Linda asks "There's a Covenant fleet out there."

"Reach is not going to survive unless our reinforcements arrive." Fred said

"How long until our fleet of ships arrive anyway?" Rosenda asks while taking the fuel rod gun from the Shipmaster

"I heard fifty percent of the fleet is coming to Reach." Carter said "The first battle group was supposed to arrive in forty-eight hours. We may have twelve or fifteen hours before they arrive."

"That's not good enough." Linda said

"It doesn't matter." Carter said "We have to take that ship to the High Charity."

"I seriously doubt it's going to do any good if we succeed or not." Linda said "Even if we do succeed, the Covenant is still going to glass Reach if we don't do anything right now."

"Then we take out the fleet." John said, getting half the Spartans to look back to him "We target the fleet with the Supercarrier, catch them by surprise."

"Chief." Keyes intervenes on the radio "We have already been through this; we need to take that ship to this 'High Charity'."

"If we don't do anything then Reach will fall before we ever come back. This is a one shot and I want to use it to deal as much damage to the Covenant."

"Well I'm with you." Johnson said when walking up to him "Let's get these bastards a surprise present."

"It doesn't look bad to use this ship against a Covenant fleet." Fred said "I'm sure we can at least take out as many ships before we leave."

"Just how many ships can we take out anyway?" Emile asks

"According to the databanks of the Supercarrier." Cortana intervenes "It should be enough to wipe out that fleet of Covenant ships… And maybe most of our fleet if they use it against us."

"Well even if we do leave, bringing a Supercarrier, intact and undamaged to the High Charity, bound to raise a few eyebrows." Rosenda said

"If they even have any." Emile said

"So what are we waiting for?" John asks when looking back to the others

"Well I say hit that fleet with everything we got." Johnson said when stepping in

"I don't mind putting this ship to the challenge." Kelly said when coming up to the team

"Same here." Linda said "I'm good if Chief says so."

"I'm with Chief." Fred said

"Hmn…" Carter crosses his arms and looks at the screen, looking towards the Covenant fleet

"We really serious on taking out that fleet?" Rosenda asks

"I guess we got no choice." Philips said

"How powerful is this ship anyway?" Carter asks

"We have several energy beams, hundred plasma cannons and a lot of plasma torpedoes." Cortana said "We also got an energy cannon underneath the ship, should be enough to take out a ship before putting the shields back up."

"So we have enough to wipe out those ships then." Rosenda said

Carter sighs and turns back "Captain Keyes… We're engaging the fleet."

"You really sure about this?" Captain Keyes said

Carter looks back to the others "Yeah…. We're doing it."

"You Spartans…. You just have to find some way of getting your way."

"Hey what can you?" Kelly said

"You guys have control of the most powerful warship right now." Keyes said "Can't do anything."

"Good to know." Fred looks to John and nods "Do it."

John nods back "Cortana."

"Yeah I am already on my way to the Covenant fleet."

The Long Night of Solace is now under Cortana's control, allowing her to create a lockdown inside the ship, stopping any Covenant from ruining their plans as Cortana heads straight to the fleet of ships. The Supercarrier leaves its shields off for now as it goes towards the fleet, seeing that they too have not activated their shields, making things easy for them to take out one of their assault carriers. The Supercarrier heads straight to the middle and try their best to blend in, close enough so they could try to blast the assault carrier in the center with its main plasma beam from underneath the ship.

"Just for the record here…" Rosenda said "This does sound like a bad idea but I do enjoy seeing Covenant ships getting blown up."

"I here you." Johnson said "Wish I could have brought some popcorn, this would be great seeing those ships go up in flames."

"This will get a lot of Covenant blowing their minds once they see this." Emile said

"Then let's give them a surprise then." John said

The Supercarrier heads straight into the fleet, flying over the assault carrier that was in the center. The fleet was getting suspicious and tried to contact them, getting no response, not sure what is wrong, as they have no idea that Supercarrier is with the UNSC. The Supercarrier was right over the top of that carrier, firing the first strike by firing main plasma cannon at the bottom of the Supercarrier, piercing through that carrier's hull and soon pierces straight through to the bottom. That carrier took a massive blow and sustain heavy damage, triggering chains of explosions from where the blast was, the ship was still intact but it lost its shields and weapons.

"That ship is dead in the water." Cortana said

"Light it up!" John calls out

The Supercarrier quickly turned on its shields when both assault carriers open fire on both sides with plasma cannons, the Supercarrier retaliates by firing back at them with plasma cannons and started firing plasma beams at the battlecruisers. The Supercarrier fired a few plasma beams at the Covenant battlecruisers quickly; one pierced through one of the cruisers from below and went through the other side. One battlecruiser took two shots from the plasma beams from below, breaking the ship in half, the carrier continued firing everything they got, even launched all of their plasma torpedoes at the battlecruisers.

"What's our status right now?" Carter asks

"That's their fourth battlecruiser destroyed, one carrier dead and the other two continue hitting hard…." Cortana said

"Well keep firing." Linda said

"How is the shields anyway?" Kelly asks

"Shields are still holding –" They soon felt heavy shakes from the plasma hits from the carriers "Those carriers are annoying."

"Well keep firing at them."

"What do you think I'm doing?"

The battle continued going and the fleet just lost two more battlecruisers after one got obliterated heavy fire with the torpedoes and the plasma beams. One of the battlecruisers was going for a suicidal attack on the Supercarrier, flying over the left diagonal side of the Supercarrier, charging a plasma beam at the bottom of the ship. The Supercarrier saw it and fired first before it had a chance, firing two plasma beams straight through the ship, sending it a blaze and got the ship flying over their heads and crashes straight into the assault carrier on the right side of the Supercarrier. That carrier lost the shields and took heavy damage from that impact of the battlecruiser, once it was heavily damage; the Supercarrier fired everything they had on that carrier, hitting it with plasma cannons and plasma beams and a couple of torpedoes. The carrier could not handle anymore from those shots until eventually; the ship explodes in half once a plasma beam went straight through a critical area, destroying the second assault carrier.

"There goes another capital ship." Cortana said "The shields are still holding though…."

"What's the problem then?" Fred asks

"That other ship is moving past us, it's trying to target our engines the moment we lost shields."

"Can you take it out?" John asks

"I'm trying to!"

"Do you mind if we step in?" Captain Keyes intervenes

The Pillar of Autumn flies straight into the battle and straight towards that carrier, once in range they fired a MAC round straight through that carrier. The Autumn turns to the side and started unleashing a barrage of missiles towards that carrier, sending them towards the side of the ship and trying to make the hole they just made bigger, making serious damage to that carrier.

Cortana turn her weapons towards that assault carrier that the Autumn was firing upon, continue hitting it hard a few times until eventually it could not handle it anymore. The Supercarrier fired a single beam straight inside one of the holes of the carrier, hitting a perfect hit, which got the assault carrier to explode, breaking it in half.

The Pillar of Autumn boost its engines to head straight to the top of the Supercarrier while it finally losses its shields, leaving only three ships remain as they continue firing at the Supercarrier. The Supercarrier continued firing at the last cruisers while taking slight damage of the top hull, it kept moving closer to them, destroying one of them with plasma shells while destroying the last two with its plasma beams. The beams pierce through the cruisers but took a while before they could go through the shields and blast through the hulls, destroying them both and reigning victorious over this area of broken ships.

"The last cruisers are neutralise." One of the men said on the Pillar of Autumn

Captain Keyes sighs relieved "Unbelievable…"

"We lost the shields but will be turned back on when we reach the High Charity." Cortana said "So now is the good time to make the jump."

"Before reinforcements arrive." Carter said "Which they would very soon."

"Then let's get to work then." Emile said then turns around, moving out of the bridge

"I'm with you." Kelly said and goes after him

"Alright, let's get back to the hanger then." Carter said "No point staying here, this here is still not the hard part."

"Were about to go inside a battle station." Rosenda said "This is going to be legendary."

"Can't believe were going to do this…" Johnson said "Were going to play Trojan Horse in a floating city full of aliens that are going to be so pissed off once they find out what we have done to their ship."

"We've all been there." Fred said when tapping on his shoulder and walking out of the bridge

"Cortana. Make the jump."

"Already ahead of you."

"She is one smart girl." Johnson said "Let's hope she can get this done." He turns back and leaves the bridge

The Supercarrier makes the jump by creating a Slip space portal in front of the ship, getting the Supercarrier to go straight through with the Pillar of Autumn joining in, staying on top of the ship as they both go straight into the portal. Both ships are soon preparing for the worse as they are about to go straight into Covenant territory, preparing to do the impossible, the raid on the High Charity begins.


	7. The Raid on the High Charity Pt1

The raid on the High Charity is soon to be underway once the Supercarrier arrives to its destination, bringing the Pillar of Autumn with them through Slip space. There is only ten Spartans and a platoon of marines with them, making this a serious attack on the High Charity would involve significant damage on both sides. This here could involve certain death for half or all of the Spartans, in the end; they are ready to put their lives on the line in order to save humanity.

Right now, the Supercarrier just made it to the destination but they appear to be further away than they think they are, only because the Pillar of Autumn needs to stay out of their radar, allowing the team on the Supercarrier to go on ahead. The team would have to do this alone and once they achieve their goals, they need to find a way to escape, that way they could return to the Pillar of Autumn and then make the jump to Reach.

"Cortana I need to know if we are in the clear right now." Captain Keyes responds to Cortana

"We are closer than I can get us but it will take a while before the Covenant find your location." Cortana responds "But you are still in range of radio contact with us once we make it to the High Charity."

"So where is the High Charity?" John asks while still staying on the bridge with Cortana

"The High Charity is right out there but don't worry, they haven't spotted us yet but once we get closer they are bound to notice us. I am going to put on autopilot on the Supercarrier, that way it will head straight to the fleet and give us the time to get on board of the High Charity without them noticing us."

"What's stopping the Covenant from taking back this ship?" Linda asks while she was with the others in the hanger bay

"Don't worry about that, I'm going to put a trap on the Supercarrier if the Covenant infiltrate the ship. Don't worry about the rest of the Covenant on board, I already sent them to sleep."

"Well that's good to know." Linda said

"Alright Chief… You can unplug me now."

The Supercarrier activates its engines and heads straight towards the High Charity on autopilot, sending this ship back home. Cortana re-joins with the Master Chief and makes their way to the hanger bay; there they plan to jump ship the moment they are in range of the High Charity, making this an accurate strike on the Covenant battle station.

"All marines and Spartans, this is Captain Keyes. I should let you know that this here will result in a suicidal act, whatever happens, this will change the war and the fate of humankind, and we cannot fail here. I know we have a lot on our shoulders so let's win this war once and for all."

The Supercarrier continued its route towards the large fleet of Covenant ships, eventually discovered by the fleet, wondering what it is doing here. The Supercarrier continued going while the team makes their way to the hanger bay, ready themselves for a fight, knowing what lies inside hat High Charity. Master Chief would be the last one to arrive, checking his weapons and ammo, ditching the assault rifle and replacing it with a plasma rifle.

"Once were inside it is going to get messy." Linda said "So this could be the last time we see each other's faces, whatever happens…"

"We know." Carter said when checking the magazine of his DMR before placing it back into the gun "For starters we split the teams in half like before, this time you guys should take the marines with you."

"We'll take two dropships." Fred said "Our team heads inside the High Charity and go for a hunt for the Covenant leaders, Cortana can assist us once she is inside the Covenant's system."

"Can you do it?" Rosenda looks to John

"I can do it." Cortana responds "I'll be your eyes and ears everywhere, I know where the Covenant are and how to counteract against it. I can also help on looking for the fusion reactors; it's a good way to send this place with a bang."

"And wipe out the entire fleet." Emile said "That's going to be good…"

"Except we need to get off the station before it blows up." Kelly looks to him "So we don't have that much time once they do."

"That's why we're bringing some explosives." Philips said "I'll put a timer on it to twenty minutes, once the leaders are dead, we have twenty minutes to get out of there."

"Is that even enough time?" Kelly asks

"We'll be alright." John said "We need to take out the Covenant leaders first. We kill them as proof of their deaths then escape, which gives us time to escape once the reactors go off."

"Then we'll take care of the reactors." Carter said "We take the banshees and fly to a different location, once were in, we'll secure the fusion reactor room and wait for the signal to hit the timer then we get out of here."

"Sounds like a plan." Jess said "Is it the same team as before?"

"The teams are the same as before." John said "I'll take Blue Team and the other Spartan." He turns towards Wade

Wade nods "Understood."

"Well what are we waiting for then?' Johnson steps in "Let's get this over with, return home, and have a nice long vacation."

"Yeah good luck with that." Kelly said

"Just remember…" Carter said "The leaders will be guarded heavily."

"Don't worry." John said "We'll handle it."

"Once the reactors explode then we need to make a run for it." Linda said "Take a ship and flee or take a dropship and travel to the Pillar of Autumn. That ship is our last lifeboat if we end up with that last resort."

"Let's hope the Autumn stays where it is and not get near this place." Fred said

"Then that means they get to watch how we succeed." Johnson said "Well let's get this over with then."

"Alright." Rosenda looks to Carter "Ready when you are sir."

"Good luck Spartans… And everyone else."

The Supercarrier made it to a location near the High Charity, joining the rest of the fleet of ships where it holds position, getting the teams to get out of the hanger and head straight to the High Charity. Two spirits and five banshees flew out of the hanger of the Supercarrier, flying underneath an assault carrier that was flying over their heads and towards the Supercarrier. The ship did not spot them, it continued its course towards the ship and once it is over the top of the ship, they begin to send troops into the Supercarrier.

"My guess is right." Cortana said "They are in."

"So much for that lifeboat." Linda said

"Hey at least we had fun using that ship before we bring it back to the enemy." Johnson said

"Let's hope we can wipe everything out before they could send it back to the frontlines again." Carter said

"Don't worry." Cortana said "I have placed a trap on that Supercarrier, it's not going anywhere."

"If you say so."

"Once we escape… Let's hope our dropships have enough time to get out of here, make it to the Autumn." Jess said

"Just how long until a battle station explodes when the reactors go off?" Emile asks Carter

"Depends on the damage that is dealt to it."

"Alright guys… This is where we split up." Carter said when contacting the Spartans on the spirits "Good luck guys."

The banshees break off from the two spirits and heads off somewhere else in the High Charity, flying to another location where they can get inside. The two spirits continues their course, going to a different location. The two teams took a while before they saw an opening, going straight inside the High Charity and begins docking inside a hanger area, guarded by a couple of grunts and some brutes that are on guard duty. The grunts are busy on the controls they are using, not knowing that inside the spirits are a lot of soldiers ready to kill them all. The spirits open up both sides of the hatches, getting the people inside to take aim and open fire while others jump off, landing on the ground and starts shooting at whatever they see moves.

John jumps down and starts firing his plasma rifle at the few grunts in front of him, shooting through the controls and killing two of them. He quickly turns to the left and fires at the brutes nearby, overloading his weapon but Fred and Wade jumps down to assist, shooting at the brutes and killing them quickly. John waits to recharge his weapon and backs away, taking a few hits with needles and lost half his shields, getting Kelly to take his position on firing her shotgun, killing two more grunts before the area was secure.

"All teams move in." Fred said when moving forward, dropping his weapon and taking a red plasma rifle off the dead brute

"Get me in the systems… Now." Cortana said

"I know." John looks around the area and notices an icon on his HUD, showing the location on where to put Cortana. He runs over to this console and places his hand over it, getting Cortana inside where she could show her small appearance in front of him.

"I'm in… Give me a few minutes to check stuff out."

"Copy that." John looks to the others "Let's go."

The team continues moving up ahead, taking a gravity lift, having a few going up there one at a time where they go up a few levels. Once they reach a certain point where they cannot go any higher, there was two brutes standing near it, getting Wade to land behind one of them. He sends his knife through the neck of the brute, firing his plasma gun through the back of the brute a few times before pulling the knife out, sending it falling. Spartan Kelly was the other Spartan to reach up here with Wade first, coming behind the other brute and firing two shotgun shells through the back, killing it and sending it fall off the platform with the other brute. Both Wade and Kelly moves along the platform in front of them, giving the others some space when they reach to their location, continue moving and heading towards the door up ahead.

"Are we going the right way?' Kelly asks when reaching to the door, seeing it opening up and seeing a long corridor

"Keep moving." Cortana said "The Covenant are about to hit the alarm, now is the good time to not stay in a location."

"What's going on with the other team?" Linda asks when reaching to the top with the others

"Worry about us reaching the target." Kelly looks back and notices Linda and other marines moving towards her

In another location, two elites head towards one of the doors that leads to a hanger area. The moment the door in front of them opens up, the Spartans was on the other side, aiming their weapons at them.

"Boo."

Emile fired first and so did the other Spartans, taking out the elites quickly before they could draw out their weapons. After they fell to the ground, Carter and Philips moves forward to take point while the others stay behind them, letting them fire their rifles towards a few grunts and one elite in the distance, clearing the corridor.

"Were inside." Carter said while keeping his aim up when reaching to the next door

The next room leads to a large circle room, covered by Covenant, causing the Spartans to open fire with everything they got. They catch them by surprise and kill a handful of them, getting the rest to look towards them and quickly shoot back. Philips was dropping his sniper rifle after running out of ammo, quickly throwing a plasma grenade to a nearby group on his right, killing three grunts while one elite rolled out of the way. Jess was standing next to him while firing her assault rifle, targeting the one elite that Philips missed. Philips joins in while moving forward, taking out an SMG and started shooting at that one elite then starts shooting at the others while taking some damage.

Emile was with Carter on the left side while firing his shotgun, before he could reload his weapon, he draws out a grenade launcher and fires, killing one elite. After he fired, he reloads then switches back to the shotgun and reloads that but he backs away, getting Rosenda to take his position on firing at the grunts. She threw a plasma grenade and took out two jackals, damaging one elite as it goes running backwards towards the door behind him, getting inside the corridor to recover while two more elites move across position, firing their plasma rifles towards her. She backs away while throwing one more plasma grenade towards them, getting them to move away while it explodes, giving her time to back away while Jess, Philips and Carter focus on killing those two elites. Emile stepped into this and fired a perfect shot with the grenade launcher, waiting for one to go running to the side and take a hit, killing it while the other elite soon joins him when taking too many hits from the others. One more elite was still alive in this firefight, instead of returning to the fight, it retreats, retreating out of the area and went to warn the others.

"Did anyone kill the other elite?" Emile said when moving towards the other door while holding his shotgun

"It retreated." Jess said

"All Spartans, double time!" Carter said when running towards the door, reloading his rifle then contacts Cortana "Cortana, we need the location on the fusion reactors."

"You guys are going the right way… I'll assist you out but it is going to be difficult on doing two things at once."

"Do what you can, we'll keep in touch."

Meanwhile, in a location where the three prophets are located. Truth, Regret and Mercy was together in their main room, talking to one another until one elite of the royal guard approaches them, interrupting them and warning them about intruders have entered the High Charity.

"What!"

"How did the humans enter this holy city!?" Regret said "That is impossible."

"The humans manage to have stolen our greatest warship and brought it here." The royal guard said "They have infiltrated this city and have split their troops in half."

"This is unacceptable!" Mercy said "How can a group of soldiers infiltrate one of our greatest ships?"

"It doesn't matter." Truth said "They will not enter this room, not while our royal guard is here with us." He moves forward with his floating seat "Bring our warriors to us. Order the rest of our forces to exterminate them, we cannot allow them to continue spreading their filth across our sacred city."

"It will be done." The elite bows slightly to them before turning back and taking his leave, walking past a few royal guards as they come to the room, securing the room and the entrances

"The humans are smarter than we thought." Regret said

"They are moving through our city with two teams." Mercy said "Why are they doing that?"

"It doesn't matter." Truth said "The humans are getting desperate because they are losing this war. After we kill these intruders, we will drag their corpses out of here and into space, these humans are not going to stop us and our Great Journey."

Master Chief and his team made it through a large hallway when Cortana unlocked the door in front of them. They storm right in and two marines took hits from snipers, falling to the ground, the rest would continue running through and firing at the Covenant at the back. The Spartans takes the lead and avoid the damage dealt to their shields, only Kelly lost her shields first and got her to move into cover after she took two more hits to the chest but luckily, her armour did not pierce through. The rest continued moving while firing their weapons, only Spartan Wade decided to support Kelly when moving in front of her, firing both his plasma guns towards the enemy, assisting Kelly until her shields restore.

Johnson stood by the side of the wall, firing his weapon and killing two jackals. He soon lowered his weapon when noticing two hunters coming out of the door at the end of the room, they also brought a swarm of drones, flying into the air and starts shooting their plasma pistols or needle gun towards the group. Johnson fired at the drones and took out some of them, getting some to fire their weapons towards him, getting him to retreat but took three plasma hits to the chest, sending him collapsing to the floor. Master Chief was nearby, notices that Johnson is down, and injured, quickly running towards him to give him cover, taking the hits a few times while shooting back at the drones. He turns back to Johnson and grabs his shoulder, dragging him back before the hunter's steps in, firing their fuel rod shots across the room, blasting the walls and sending the others to move out of the way.

"God damnit!" Johnson shouts while moaning from the injuries "One of them hit me good."

John places Johnson into cover and puts him down against the wall, sitting him there while looking back to the hunters then to the others. Fred was on the other side of the room, taking a few plasma damage and lost his shields, taking a few more hits and sent him moving into cover while Kelly and Wade advance their position. Wade shot down the rest of the drones while Kelly shot through one elite, soon to turn attention to the hunters, getting the two to move away from one another when they open fire on them, only hitting the walls.

John looks back to Johnson "Stay in cover… I'll be back."

"Don't even think about leaving me you bastard."

"I won't." He takes Johnson's assault rifle and moves out of cover, firing towards the two hunters while moving to the side. He threw a grenade towards them, only damaging one of them slightly.

The two hunters turn towards Chief and Fred when they come together, both firing their weapons towards them and got them to move away from each other. Kelly was near them and continues firing a few shells through the back of one of then threw a plasma grenade at the back of it, killing one of them and starts moving around the other hunter as it starts turning towards her. Linda was at the back at the doorway, firing her needle rifle she got off a sniper, shooting the hunter in the back as it was chasing after Kelly, trying to crush her but fails when she moves away from it. Linda fired half of her clip of needles at the back of the hunter, even Fred and Chief help on firing through the back of the hunter, finally killing it.

Kelly turns back to the door and starts reloading her shotgun, noticing she only had two shells left so she ditches the shotgun and picks up two plasma rifles. She and Wade moves up to secure the door while Fred and Chief walks over to Johnson, seeing him slowly getting up off the ground, slowly moving towards them.

"Are you alright?' Fred asks

"I'll live." Said Johnson "I like to have my gun back."

Chief lends his assault rifle back to Johnson "The gun is empty."

Johnson sighs and hits the assault rifle off him, sending it to the floor "Thanks…" He looks to the right at the dead Covenant on the ground, getting his eyes towards a carbine rifle. He takes the weapon and reloads it, also taking more ammo off the dead Covenant before looking back to others. "Well what are we waiting for?"

"The area looks secure." Kelly said when looking through the door, seeing a cross corridor "But which way do we go? Straight up?" She looks back to Wade and he looks back to the others

"Go to the right and you will lead to another gravity lift." Cortana intervenes "It should take you up the level, and then continue moving, don't worry, you are going the right way and you will eventually meet up with the Covenant leaders."

"Eventually?" Kelly asks

"I am accurate you know."

John walks up to Kelly while taking another plasma rifle off the ground "Come on Kelly." He looks back to Linda as she came up towards them, replacing her weapon with a carbine rifle

"You going to be alright?' Fred asks Johnson

"Yeah I'm going to be alright. It will take more than little shots to put me down."

"Unless you take a needle in the eye." Linda walks past the two and walks straight into the corridor

The team continues to advance, heading down the pathway that Cortana told them. They soon encounter some resistance but was not heavy, eliminating them quickly and continues towards the prophets. Very soon, they would have to deal with some brutes, leading the defence while the elites are protecting the prophets in their main chambers.

During their travels, they soon to get a transmission happening across the whole battle station, getting word from the Prophet of Truth.

"My warriors of the Covenant! Our holy city has fallen into taint by the humans; they are here, spreading their taint and corruption all across our home!"

"Who the hell is that?' Kelly asks when looking up at the ceiling

"It seems the Covenant leaders are giving a speech." Cortana said

"Oh that's just great, now we have to deal with this guy talking." Johnson said "He's going to bore us to death."

"Hey at least we got the great view of the place." Fred said when standing on the edge of the platform, looking out at the large view, seeing the whole inside of the High Charity as he and the others could see the large city in the background.

"What an amazing view." Fred said then shrugs "Well at least we can remember this before we blow this city up."

"What is that thing in the middle?" Linda asks when looking at the large Forerunner ship in the center of the city

"Who knows…" Fred looks to her then back out at the view

"We shall stay strong and vigilant." Truth speaks out "Will we allow these heathens to continue their killing rampage across our holy city? No. We must hunt them down and eliminate them! Only then can we send their bodies into the void of space where they will remain there for eternity. We must not allow them to interfere in the Great Journey."

"I can't wait to send that son of a bitch into the void." Johnson said looking at the city then turns to the side, noticing Covenant infantry in the distance "Hey heads up!"

A few brutes and a handful of grunts and jackals open fire towards the group, getting them all to turn towards them and return fire. John and Fred took most of the hits, having their shields close of depleted but they started moving while firing at the Covenant. Linda backs away while switching back to the needle rifle, firing towards the brutes, killing one of the brutes then starts doing headshots at the grunts, the same goes to Johnson as well.

Very soon, a phantom was coming around the building, flying straight towards them, getting the team to get into cover before it starts firing upon them. Linda takes aim and shoots the mounted gunner, sending that grunt off the phantom then moves backwards while that phantom fires its main weapon, hitting her a few times. She took too much hits from those shots as it continues shooting at her while moving closer, soon to break her shields and hit her chest a few times, sending her collapsing back onto the ground.

Kelly looks back and notices Linda fell to the ground. "Linda is down!"

Fred looks back "Linda! –" He suddenly got down when a fuel rod round almost hits him on the side, damaging his shields, getting out of cover and took two more hits to the chest

"It's a good thing I grabbed one of these." Johnson took out an item and threw it to the ground in front of him and Fred, creating a large energy shield for cover

"Thanks Johnson." Fred said while reloading

"Johnson wasn't the only one." Wade said when taking out an orb and throws it across the area and towards the Covenant, once it hit the ground, it created a massive flash of light to blind them.

Johnson and Chief started shooting through the light, hoping that they hit the rest of the Covenant while Kelly moves towards Linda, only to stop at halfway when the phantom was still there; shooting at her, once they are in their sights. Fred looks to the phantom then looks out, getting out of cover and running towards the dead Covenant while firing his plasma rifle at the others. He stops and notices one of the dead grunts had fuel rod cannon, taking the weapon and moving towards the phantom. The phantom starts moving closer, flying over their heads while firing the main weapon, Fred would quickly fire what is left of the fuel rod gun, damaging the main weapon of the phantom, causing it to withdraw to leave them alone for now.

After the area is secure, Kelly and Fred runs over to Linda while Chief, Wade and Johnson stays together, securing the area but they start moving back to see if Linda is all right. She was slowly getting up off the ground, having her shields recharge but she looks injured, she had her arm over her chest where she took the plasma damage.

Kelly comes up to her and crouches down in front of her. "You alright?"

"I'm fine…" Linda said when coughing in her helmet, lowering her head a bit "They hit me good."

"Could have been worse." Fred said when standing near the two, lending his hand down in front of her "Can you get up?"

Linda looks to his hand then looks up at him, she sighs slightly when taking his hand, slowly rising up off the ground, leaving her hand over her chest when she rose up, and feeling slight pains from those hits. She looks to Fred for the moment then to Kelly, seeing her rising back up and giving her carbine rifle back.

"We got more movement coming." Cortana responds to the team "There's another phantom inbound."

Chief looks back to the others "We need to get inside. Now." He then looks back to Wade "Wade, take point."

"I'm on it." He runs up ahead, running over the dead Covenant, taking a plasma pistol off the ground and continues moving, holding onto the plasma rifle with one hand while holding the plasma pistol on the other.

"I'll watch his six." Johnson said when looking to John "You better watch my back too."

"We will." He turns back and looks over to the others, seeing them walking over to the two then looks back and notices Johnson moving up ahead.

"You can't go down yet Linda." Fred said "Were just getting started."


	8. The Raid on the High Charity Pt2

"Commander Carter, correct?" Cortana contacts him "You are getting closer to your destination, I'm going to lock the doors behind you just to slow the Covenant down but you will be dealing with heavy resistance."

"I'm well aware of that." Carter said "Contact the other team that we are getting closer to our destination."

"I'm already warning them now."

"Were going to be running out of ammo soon." Emile said when checking his shotgun, noticing only two shells left

"If you look at the ground then you might find more weapons." Jess said

"She got you there sir." Philips said when looking back to the others then looks forward

"Shut up."

"Were getting close to our location." Carter said "Get ready for a fight." He starts reloading his carbine rifle before moving towards the next door

The team breach the main and primary room where the fusion reactors are located; there they notice a handful of grunts on their side, firing upon them before they could shoot back. The rest of the Covenant around the area quickly turn their attention towards the Spartans, seeing as there was fifteen Covenant troops in this room and with them was a brute chieftain. The chieftain turns towards the attention of gunfire, drawing a gravity hammer and waits for the team to get closer, once they reach its sights.

"We got a chieftain!" Emile calls out when dropping the shotgun and drawing a grenade launcher, taking aim towards the chieftain and firing, damaging it slightly while killing a grunt

Carter, Emile and Rosenda moves up ahead on the side while firing at the Covenant, pushing them back while Jess and Philips stays back. Philips turns back and notices some Covenant coming from the corridor they just went through, causing him to fire back at them and so was Jess to eliminate them. Jess threw a grenade down the corridor to remove what is left of the group, getting them to turn back to join the others up ahead, seeing them firing all out at the brute chieftain before it got closer, killing it quickly.

The group moves up to the center of the room while shooting at the rest of the Covenant, not knowing that behind them on another level lies a sniper, aiming its rifle down at the group as they move to the center. The sniper aims at Carter for the moment when he turns back, aiming for his chest but the sniper lowers its scope down, aiming at Rosenda then fired. She took a hit right in her back by an energy round, piercing through her back and sending her to the ground. Philips catches Rosenda before she hit the ground while Carter aims his rifle and fires one shot through the head, killing the sniper.

Philips moves Rosenda to the ground while she places her hands over her chest where the shot went through; holding the wound and so was Philips while the others secure the area. Carter crouches down to help, noticing her breathing heavily. Carter took off her helmet to see her face, noticing blood down her mouth.

"It's not good." Philips said "It went straight through her, think it hit her spine."

Carter looks up at the others "Secure the area." He looks to Emile "Emile, check the other corridors and watch any Covenant activity."

"Copy that sir." He turns back and runs towards one of the corridors

Carter contacts the other Spartans "Spartans, Rosenda is down and we need to get out of here."

"Were still busy." Fred responds "Were not even close to the Covenant leaders."

"Did you say Rosenda is down?' Kelly responds to Carter

"She's not going anywhere with this injury." Carter said "If she doesn't leave anytime soon…"

"We can't do anything about that right now." Kelly said "Were not there yet and it'll be a while before we do."

"We could always just blow this place up and get this over with." Philips said while keeping his hands to her wound, soon leaning back and noticing blood underneath Rosenda

"We need to make sure the Covenant leaders are dead." Chief said "If any of them make it out of here then the war is still going."

"Then you got a time limit." Carter said "If you don't kill them in half an hour then were going to blow this place up."

"With us inside?" Linda asks

"We still have time to escape, be sure you escape."

"You do your part and we do ours." Chief said

"Copy that."

Meanwhile, the other team went up one more level by using another gravity lift, sending the team into a room with royal guards, armed with spears. Johnson lands to the ground and quickly takes aim, firing a plasma launcher, sending four plasma grenades through the air, hitting two of them when they charge while the other two hit the ground behind them; they exploded and took out three royal guards in the process. The rest of the royal guards charge towards them, having Johnson move back while Wade runs at them while firing his weapons, killing one royal guard then another while the other Spartans arrive behind him, joining the fight. This soon turns into a close quarter firefight, having the Spartans using melee and their combat knives to fight against the royal guards, avoiding their spears and taking them down, sometimes they do teamwork on killing one. Johnson stays back and switches to the carbine rifle, firing towards the door when seeing more Covenant enter the room.

In the main chambers of the prophets where the three stays together, looking at the door as two elite generals came through, carrying energy swords. Another elite was standing nearby with his energy sword as well but was the colour red; looking at the two generals then looks back to the prophets.

"You need to leave… Now."

"I can't believe these demons reach this far!" Regret said

"We cannot abandon this sacred city to these intruders." Mercy said

"You three are the only reason why they are here." The elite said "Let us at least move you elsewhere, that way we can dispose of them quickly."

"As painful to hear that…. But you may be right." Truth said then looks to the others "We must depart immediately."

"I will protect the hierarchs." A brute shows up from behind the elite, getting all of their attention towards him "You just get rid of the filth."

"Tartarus."

"Tartarus will protect us." Truth said "Now go, and don't come back until they all lie dead at your feet."

"Very well then." The elite looks to the other guards, nodding them to turn back and leave the room, heading out of the chambers of the prophets and joins the others outside.

"We should leave now." Tartarus said when walking past them, walking towards a doorway at the back while looking back at them "I have a dropship to transport you three somewhere safe."

"Very good Tartarus." Truth follows closer to him "Lead on."

Outside the room, the Spartans continue storming through while firing at the Covenant royal guards, shooting them down before they had a chance to charge at them with their spears, the rest of the elites switch to plasma weaponry and try to shoot back at the Spartans. Spartan Wade protects the group when throwing another energy ball, this one started to heal the group quickly while they continue firing. Johnson continues firing the plasma launcher at the Covenant, blasting a handful of elites to the ground while the rest continue firing. The fight lasted for a few minutes and the Spartans annihilated the royal guards, there they move into the next room where they discover that the prophets are gone. The team storms right into the empty room where the prophets used to be, seeing the whole area is abandoned.

"Where did they go?" Fred asks when looking around

"Don't stop moving!" Cortana responds to them "They left a while ago but you can still catch up to them. There sending them further within the High Charity."

The team was just about to make a move after them, only to be interfered by surviving elite who happens to be the red elite general, rushing right into the room and attacks Fred. He swung his energy sword down at him, cutting his weapon in half when Fred turns to face him; the elite quickly drew an energy sword from his wrist and manage to stab Fred right in the chest. The rest of the Spartans quickly open fire on that elite after he stabbed Fred, Johnson finishes it by firing a plasma grenade from the launcher, hitting it in the chest and blowing it up. Both the elite and Fred collapses back onto the ground, causing the team to run over towards Fred.

Kelly runs up to Fred and crouches down near him, seeing him breathing heavily and having one hand over his wound of where the energy sword hit him. Kelly looks up at the others and yells out to them. "Go get the prophets before they escape, I got him. Go!"

"We got to move." Wade said to Linda then looks to Johnson "You with me?"

"Damnit… Kelly you stay here, we'll be back." Linda said and looks towards the door up ahead

The rest of the group double time by running towards the door while Kelly stays with Fred, holding onto his wound with her hands while looking to the other door, looking at the dead elites in case one rises up. The rest of the team was force to leave them be for now, making their move down the corridor and continues to try to catch up to the prophets.

On a large platform where three phantoms are off the edge of the platform, showing a large view of the city and the large Forerunner ship in the background. The prophet of Truth and Tartarus gets on board of the phantom first while Mercy and Regret follow them from behind, moving to the other phantoms but once they got closer, the hatch of the phantoms suddenly close in front of them. Truth and Tartarus gets on board of the phantom in front of them and looks back to the other prophets.

"What is going on?" Mercy said when seeing the two phantoms flying away while the one that Truth went on stays there. He looks back to him and said "What is the meaning of this!?"

"You two have serve your purpose." Truth said to them "It's time for the new change for the Covenant and with that, those who are worthy shall see the Great Journey."

"Are you insane?!" Regret said

"I am the hierarch of the Covenant, the Great Journey waits for no one."

The phantom hatch closes up and moves away from the platform, flying out of here where it joins the other two phantoms on going somewhere else. The two prophets watch as their ride is gone, being exposed and left wide open to be attack by the humans as they eventually come forth to face them. The two prophet's looks back when seeing them entering the platform, looking at one another for a while but Johnson fires first and not say anything to them. Johnson aims his carbine rifle and fired through the face of Mercy, hitting him in the face two times before he collapses to the ground, the others open fire on Regret, not saying a word to them and did not hesitate to waste half their ammo on the prophets. They shot them both dead and made sure that they stay dead, killing the two prophets and not knowing that it was Truth who gave them what they wanted, in exchange for his survival of fleeing from the humans.

Johnson sighs relieved after he stopped shooting at Regret "Oh that felt good…."

"Same here…." Linda said when walking up to the prophets, looking down at their bodies, firing one more shot at Mercy

"That's another dead Covenant." Chief said

"We better return to Fred and Kelly…" Linda looks back to the others "We can't celebrate yet, this is not over."

"I do wish we can celebrate." Johnson said

"Let's celebrate when we all get out of here." Chief said

Elsewhere, the other team was busy dealing with heavy resistance on their side, having Covenant troops attacking their location, trying to take back that room while they hold it against them. Philips stays in the main room with Rosenda who was still lying there on the ground, having bandages on her back and front of her wounds but she lost too much blood. Philips left her side for now and went to work on placing explosives on the main areas of the fusion reactors, once there all in place he returns to Rosenda.

Carter, Emile and Jess secure the corridors from Covenant. Carter and Jess was together in the corridor where they came through before, Emile was in another corridor, fighting off against a handful of grunts and jackals.

"Commander this is Philips." Philips contacts Carter "Chargers are set and we have twenty minutes before they go off. I put a timer on them, we have twenty minutes before they go off and there is no way of turning them off once there on. I took out the false safe on these bombs before we got here, that way the Covenant can't turn them off."

"Do they even know how to turn them off?' Emile asks

"Got to be careful." Carter responds then contacts Philips again "Spartan, how is Rosenda?"

Philips looks back to Rosenda as she just lies there, noticing her not moving or breathing. He stops what he is doing and rushes towards Rosenda, crouching down and checking her pulse, noticing there is no pulse. He looks back to her face, her eyes are still open but Philips moves his hands over her eyes to close them, after that he takes the dog tags off her neck before getting back up off the ground, still looks at her for the moment before looking to the side and contacts the others.

"Spartan Rosenda is dead."

The Spartans heard it and held silence for the moment, that silence ends quickly when Covenant ground troops are seen, coming through the corridors and getting into another firefight. Philips stayed with Rosenda for a time but he left the room, went to go check on Jess while she was by herself fighting Covenant. She was busy fighting a handful of grunts but when brutes shows up, she was force to move back where Philips joins into the fight and assist.

Meanwhile, Blue Team just got word that Rosenda is dead but they had other problems to concern about and that was Frederic's injuries. He took the energy sword through his chest, stabbing through his chest but did not go deep enough but was struggling to breathe. Kelly was holding onto his chest while the others surround him, having Johnson and Chief together as Chief goes to contact Carter.

"Noble Team, are the bombs set, we need to get out of here."

"This is Spartan Philips, the bombs are set and ready to be activated, have you killed the Covenant leaders?"

"The leaders are neutralized and we need to get the hell out of here." Johnson said

"How is Spartan Frederic?" Carter contacts Chief

Chief looks back to Fred "Fred is down and needs to get out of here now."

"He's not going to survive the walk." Kelly said "It's hard for him to breathe."

"I think the sword went through his -

"I think I got something that can help you out." Johnson said when approaching the three, taking out a canister of a biomedical foam. "This is going to hurt like a bitch though."

Johnson comes to the side of Fred and uses the canister, sending the foam through his wound, causing him to gasp and starts breathing heavily when the foam covers his wounds. After he used it he backs away, getting Kelly and Wade to help him back up.

"Is he going to be alright now?' Chief asks Johnson

"He needs to get out of here. Soon."

"That's what we're doing now." Kelly said when grabbing his arm "Help me out here." She looks to Wade for the moment while getting him to sit up.

Wade helps Kelly by grabbing the other arm of Fred to help him up off the ground, getting him up and wrapping his arms around the necks. Chief and Johnson moves up ahead to join Linda who was ready to go, moving up ahead to take point and cover the three while they start moving.

"Noble Team." Chief contacts them "Were moving, were going to find our ride."

"Alright that's the signal." Carter said when turning back and running back towards the door "We got to move." He turns back towards Emile who was still firing his weapon, firing his plasma rifle at the Covenant in the other room "Emile, let's move!"

"Commander." Jess contacts "Me and Philips are going on ahead, were going to clear a path."

"Copy that."

"What about Rosenda?"

"I can go back and bring her with us; it would feel bad on leaving her behind." Philips said

"I know this feels bad but she has to stay behind." Carter said while reloading his carbine rifle "There's nothing we can do."

"Understood sir."

"Emile!" Carter calls out to him "We got to move!"

"I'm coming!" Emile looks back to Carter then starts running towards him

Once he retreated, one of the elites shows up behind him with an energy sword while second elite behind him was a spec ops with a needle rifle. The golden elite runs towards Emile and got him to look back at halfway, aiming his plasma rifle with one hand while holding the grenade launcher on the other. He fired one last grenade towards the golden elite, only to miss when it ducked, sending that grenade hitting against the one behind, sending that spec ops elite to the ground. Emile fires his plasma rifle towards the golden elite, firing a few times before he was force to evade the swing of the energy sword. The elite swung his sword against the side and hitting against the wall, taking plasma hits from Emile and some damage from Carter as he assist but the elite kept going and charges towards Emile. He moved to the side while firing his plasma rifle at the elite, unable to block the neck attack when it charges at him, lodging that energy sword straight through his chest, lifting him up slightly in the air.

"Emile!"

"I'm ready!" Emile shouts out when drawing out his combat knight, lodging that knife through the neck of that elite "How about you!?" He then held onto the head of the elite, sending each other onto the ground.

Carter runs up towards Emile while firing his carbine rifle at the spec ops elite that was still alive but barely. He fired five shots through the chest of the elite before it fell back but was already dead on the third shot. He comes up to Emile and lowers his weapon while crouching down, seeing the energy sword is still inside of him, he just lied there while looking towards Carter, remailing silent to Carter. He raise his right hand in the air for Carter to grab, holding on tight for a time until he suddenly lets go, sending his arm to the floor and turn his head to the side. Carter lowered his head, staying there for the moment but was force to leave without him, taking his dog tags off his neck before he got back up and return to the others.

"Spartan Philips this is Noble One. Initiate the timer on the bombs."

"You mean right now?"

"Do it!"

"U-Understood sir… Arming the bombs, now."

Carter runs past Rosenda and looks at one of the bombs, seeing the timer is going down. He looks back to Rosenda then looks forward, running through the other door to try and catch up to Jess and Philips who have already went through a few rooms, clearing a couple of Covenant infantry. Jess and Philips stops and waits for Carter to arrive, waiting until they get eyesight of Carter coming through the door, allowing them to look back and move forward. Philips would be the one to ask Carter on what happen to Emile, asking him when he got closer to them while they start moving; the only respond he got was silence, as Carter remains silent while they move. Philips looks back and still sees no sign of Emile, looking back to Carter and realising that he is not coming.

Meanwhile, the other team is already on route towards a hanger area to find and take a phantom. During the travel back to the hanger, they soon be force to stop when seeing Covenant forces in the distance, causing them to put Fred down and open fire on them in order to clear a path. A lot of Covenant ground forces came rushing into the room to attack the Spartans, half of them got in but the door suddenly closes, thanks to Cortana on still controlling the High Charity.

"Chief we got a problem." Cortana said "You guys didn't kill all the prophets."

"What do you mean?" Chief asks while continue firing his plasma rifle, killing one of the brutes

"I mean that you only killed two of them… There was a third one and he is leaving the High Charity on that ship you saw in the city."

"You serious?" Kelly asks "That thing is a spaceship?"

"Didn't it look kind of easy to kill the prophets?" Wade asks

"Well we did just wipe out a handful of Covenant bastards." Johnson said

"Well we can't do anything about it now." Linda said "Philips just activated the bombs and they can't be shut down manually."

"Then we got to move." Chief said "How long until that ship escapes?"

"Not long… By my calculations, it will leave before the High Charity blows up." Cortana said "I think they know about our plan."

"Let's hope that this place wipes out the whole Covenant fleet." Kelly said "Or else this war is still going."

"At least we are doing something here though." Johnson said

"We only have twenty minutes until the bombs explode, that will destroy the fusion reactors and set this place to overload." Chief said

"Then let's stop talking then." Linda said when coming out of cover, firing her carbine rifle, killing one brute and shooting at the grunts, killing them quickly.

"Cortana, I need you back with me again." Chief said while assisting Linda

"Don't worry, I'll be ready once you're about to leave. I have already sealed some of the doors to stop the Covenant from pursuing you; you just need to get out of here before the place blows up."

Kelly grabs Fred and helps him back up and starts to move out once the Covenant are all dead, they move through a few cleared corridors and down a gravity lift, reaching to the hanger area where they are stuck fighting more Covenant. The team battles against them, having Kelly to protect Fred while Wade starts to move towards one of the phantoms. He fires a handful of plasma rounds while dual wielding plasma rifles, shooting down at two brutes and a few jackals before getting towards the closest phantom. He takes a leap into the air and landing inside the phantom, firing a few rounds at one elite that was inside, ditching one of his plasma rifles due to running out of ammo and continues firing with the other while moving closer, soon to kick it off and sending it to the floor. Wade moves to the pilot area and kills the pilot, taking control of the phantom, using its weapons to open fire on the rest of the Covenant on the ground.

"The phantom is secure." Wade said while turning it towards the Covenant, aiming the back of it to the Spartans

"He knows what he is doing." Kelly said while watching the phantom firing its main weapon towards the Covenant, killing a few grunts and a brute.

Johnson and Linda moves towards the phantom while Kelly helps Fred towards it, getting on board with the gravity lift that was at the bottom of the phantom. Chief was about to join them but he turns back, seeing Cortana in her small form of herself on a system. Chief runs towards her and places his hand through her, sending her to break a part and start going inside his suit, returning back to her chip that is still on the back of his helmet, returning to the Master Chief.

"How much time left?" Chief asks when turning towards the phantom and runs towards it

"Ten minutes."

"We got to move."

The other team made it inside the hanger area where they are still busy fighting against a handful of brutes in the hanger, fighting them off and killing only a few of them. Carter and Philips takes the lead together while Jess stays back and reloads, taking aim and firing her weapon. The three soon focus their fire on a brute chieftain with a gravity hammer, firing most of their ammo at him until it was dead. After the chieftain died, a second one spotted, carrying a fuel rod gun and fired it towards Philips, taking a direct hit in the chest and collapse back to the floor. Carter moves out of the way when the chieftain fires a shot towards him, getting into cover, Jess would assist and help Carter by firing her plasma shots towards the chieftain to get the attention. The chieftain turns towards Jess and fires two rounds, getting Carter to move to the side, throwing a plasma grenade and hitting the left leg, blasting the leg right off and killing it when he fired a few times through the head.

Carter and Jess regroup and move towards Philips, as he was still laying there on the ground, still alive, trying to get back up off the ground. They grab his arms and help him get back up, luckily for him he still had his shields up when he took that direct hit but he lost them for now.

"Still alive in there?" Jess asks him

Philips coughs under his helmet when getting up off the ground "I'm fine…" He said to them

"We don't have much time…" Carter said then looks out, noticing a phantom

"You got to be kidding me…" Jess looks out towards the phantom, seeing it getting closer to them

The phantom flies over to the group, not firing its main weapon but instead they get a transmission from someone inside the phantom, getting a surprise on their faces. "You guys could use some help down there."

"Johnson…" Jess calls out "You son of a bitch…"

"I see you guys are in a bad shape… Get on board before this place explodes."

"We don't have much time though." Linda said

"How do we plan on escaping with less than ten minutes?" Linda asks

"I have an idea." Cortana said "Get me to the nearest ship."

The timers hit zero and the bombs went off, destroying the entire room and the fusion reactors in the process, triggering an immediate meltdown as the High Charity was soon to down with a bang. The prophet of Truth already knew about this mess, figuring it out when getting word that Spartans are going to the fusion reactor room, giving him time to escape by getting on board a Forerunner ship. Truth contacted a handful of Covenant ships to make a jump, only those who are loyal to him while the rest of the fleet stayed because Truth did not warn them of what is happening inside the High Charity. The Forerunner ship activated its engines and made a quick escape through the top of the High Charity, blasting into space and once it was clear, it makes a jump, the same goes to ten ships and twenty more ships that decided to follow while the rest remain.

The Pillar of Autumn was still in position and got the good view of the High Charity and the fleet, watching from where they are and waiting for a transmission from the Spartans but are getting no response from them. Captain Keyes starts to worry, thinking that the Spartans are dead and Cortana is compromise, since he is getting no contact from the team.

"Sir I am picking up heavy power source overloading in that battle station." One of the operatives said

"Do we have any contacts from the Spartans or Cortana?' Keyes said while still looking out at the window

"Negative sir."

"What's taking them so long?" Keyes muttered to himself

The High Charity becomes unstable when the fusion reactors blew up, causing massive chains of explosions from within this holy city. The Covenant inside the city had no idea what was about to happen, no idea that the holy city of theirs is falling apart and will not be long before it explodes. The fleet that surrounds the High Charity got word about the High Charity is about to explode, many shipmasters took action and begin to do a quick jump out of there.

The High Charity could no longer hold anymore, this large battle station soon to erupt a powerful energy blast that is much larger than an atomic bomb. The blast was unleashed when the High Charity exploded; unleashing massive blue energy throughout space, everything that made contact with this blast incinerated by the blast, and every single ship that was there was no more. The Pillar of Autumn was the only ship to stay where it was and survived the explosion, lucky for them, the blast did not reach that far, everyone on the bridge who saw it turn their heads away when seeing that flash of light, when they look back, everything was gone.

"It's all gone…" Keyes said, walking closer towards the front of the window of the bridge "It's all gone…." He then looks back to one of the personnel's on board "What's the status on the enemy ships that escaped?"

"We don't have an exact number on how many ships that escaped." Said the female personnel, looking at the computer screen "It's possible that maybe twenty or thirty ships escaped."

"Twenty or thirty ships survived… While thousands of them are gone." Keyes looks forward at the window "Do we have any conformation on the Spartans?"

"Negative sir. There is no sign of anything out there."

Keyes sighs and lowers his head for the moment, remaining silent until he finally raise his head up towards the window "Let's go home."

"Understood sir…"

The Pillar of Autumn begins to move, they turn on their engines and begins powering up their ship, ready to begin a jump to return to Reach. Just as they were about to make the jump, they soon get a warning of a Covenant cruiser in the area, a single battlecruiser that just came out of slip space.

"We have a contact!" One of the personnel said while looking at the computer "One cruiser."

"Is it powering weapons?" Keyes asks when turning towards the one who said that

"Not yet but…."

"Cortana to Captain Keyes…. Don't go anywhere."

"Cortana?"

"It's good that you are still here… We stole this ship before the High Charity blew up, we just quickly did a random jump and then a quick come back."

Keyes sighs relieved "It's good to see you… Where are the others?"

"Chief and the other Spartans are busy clearing the cruiser; we did pretty much did a rushing job because we only had a few minutes to get out of there."

"I understand."

"We also need some assistance over here… Frederic could really get some medical attention, same with Linda; she took a serious hit when we stormed the cruiser before."

"Don't worry, we will send as many people over to assist you…. And Cortana… You and the others did a hell of a job out there."

"Thank you sir."

Both ships end up staying close to one another for a time, once they are ready, both ships soon make the jump together back home, there they will give the good news to their success to the UNSC. They go straight to Reach, returning home where they will join the counter offensive against the Covenant fleet that are on Reach. They will come home proud, knowing that they have just delivered a serious blow to the Covenant but at what cost.

The surviving Covenant fleet that survived the blast of the High Charity, the fleet of ships that are under the command of Truth and other shipmasters that did not get the order from him, arrive here in the location of the Unyielding Hierophant. This huge battle station, protected by hundreds of Covenant ships, getting contact of twenty-five ships that came out of slip space and are heading straight towards them.

The Prophet of Truth arrives inside the Unyielding Hierophant with a handful of brutes by his side, along with Tartarus by his side, moving inside the battle station and into a place where he feels comfortable. Inside the room was a few elites, all standing around a table and looking towards Truth as he enters the room, standing in front of this table that had them all surrounding it. A hologram appears on the table, showing a hologram of a planet that was Earth in front of them, slowly rotating around.

"The Great Journey… It all begins here."

[That is the end of Red Flag, the only reason it is in a cliffhanger is because this is the first part of the story so it will be a while before the next part is published. Those who loved the story well thanks for your support.]


End file.
